The University of Waterloo Bike Share Initiative (which I posted about back in March) has changed its name and expanded its focus.
Now the ROW (Region of Waterloo) Bike Share, it is intended to convince regional council to support a community bike-sharing initiative. The big gear behind the website, Joshua Joseph, is spending some of his summer interning in Copenhagen, getting the opportunity to live with better bicycle infrastructure, and hopes that experience will inform his arguments for council.
He also plans/hopes to post videos of cycling infrastructure from Copenhagen, and videos that you produce of cycling successes and shortcomings here in the region. I spent some timeon a bike last year at the Velo-city Global 2010 cycling conference in the Danish capital, and had a chance to experience cycling infrastructure that works. Very uplifting. I look forward to see what Joseph's fresh eyes will see.
Check out his site if you want to know more.
While I appreciate the good intentions and the skilled and dedicated people organizing the program, but this seems like a bad idea to me.
Who exactly is this supposed to cater to? All the professionals who commute into KW by train/subway and don't have any way to get from the train station to their workplace? The massive numbers of tourists visiting KW and who need a way to get around to all of our sites and museums? The impoverished people downtown who have money to spend on bike rental?
Wait a minute... none of those people exist, and no one is going to use this service.
The massive investment will keep it going for a while, and then it will die out. It would be better to spend the cash on infrastructure and let people buy their own bikes.
Posted by: Peter Parker | 06/26/2011 at 08:56 AM