One of the pieces of advice offered by the Portland Move by Bike group is that “you might need to rent or borrow a truck to finish the job.” As much as this may seem counter to the idea of moving by bike, it is important to remember, as Laura has reminded us in her posts, that living a car-free existence is made easier by occasional access to cars. It’s ok, though, because biking isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition, and reducing car usage and increasing bike usage is pretty rad for all the same reasons that eliminating car usage is rad. Basic idea.
On that note, I wanna bring to everyone’s attention that the Smart Bike system is up and running in Washington D.C. now, and is the first such system in the U.S. It’s based on other bike rental systems (kinda like a Zipcar for bikes), the largest one being Velib in Paris. Here’s a really good video of Velib that outlines the program. In D.C., you pay a $40 annual membership and get to rent a bike as much as you want for no additional charge (I think). Bikes are kept in various locations around town where you can show up, swipe your membership card, and take a bike. Other U.S. cities have talked about doing this type of program (Portland, Boston, New York, Chicago), but I don’t think any other city has a system very far along in the works. Wish I could be in D.C. right now, but oh well. A wise man once said, “the seaweed is always greener…”
However, in a classic case of “we have the pudding and you’re a fat kid who wants it,” we found a link on the amazing Bike Portland blog that suggests that Texans may have an opportunity to get more commuters on bikes that people in other states covet. The post talks about MileMeter, a company that allows drivers to purchase auto insurance by the mile, rather than by the month or year. This allows people who don’t drive very much but do own a car to pay less for insurance. Since it’s a pay-as-you-go system, it encourages members to drive less (bike more yay!). From what I can glean, companies like OnStar do offer pay-as-you-go plans, but if you care about things like privacy and live in Texas, you’ve got options (Mile Meter also doesn’t use credit scoring or collect Social Security Numbers in an attempt to respect privacy of customers).
So, these are both systems that can hopefully bring new people into the ranks of bicycle commuters. This is good news. Building trailers + helping people move by bike = good news too. Ok, gotta go grab some wood now. That we saw on CraigsList.
2 comments:
they started a program like that in málaga, spain, while i was there. you'd pay a yearly deposit then have access to a city bike at any of the bike racks around town by swiping your bus card. it was pretty cool. i'd have used it if i didn't already have a bike. the thing was, though, they started to scale it down slowly (because of a lack of use, i think...), so that eventually it just became annoying because there weren't as many bike racks around and not so convenient. when i left, i think there may have been only one or two of them left =/. it's working well in bigger cities like barcelona, though.
arturo
Thank you for your interest there in Austin! It's great to see your enthusiasm for what MileMeter is trying to do here in Texas.
Austin has a great network of people like yourself who are making efforts drive less, and can now be rewarded by having the opportunity to pay less for car insurance.
Thanks again, we appreciate your comments!
Emily at MileMeter
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