D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare bike-sharing program has been a great success (despite its rather small size). Paris’ Velib bike-sharing program rocked the world with its tremendous, unprecedented success. Barcelona’s Bicing program was much more successful than originally anticipated. And so on and so on. Now, it’s being reported that Boston’s new bike-sharing program is a great success, even much more successful than originally anticipated.
But, seriously, no one should be surprised. Biking is a ton of fun, extremely convenient in dense cities (and most cities, to be honest), and is quite cheap. Making bicycling that much easier with easy-to-access, easy-to-use bike-sharing programs like these is a recipe for success.
Here’s more on the Boston bike-sharing program:
In its first month, Boston’s European-style bicycle sharing-system pedaled past expectations, attracting riders more than twice as fast as similar programs in Denver and Minneapolis.
As of Aug. 28, the one-month mark, the program known as Hubway had attracted 2,319 annual subscribers and witnessed 36,612 station-to-station trips. At its current clip, the system is on track to surpass 100,000 rides before Halloween.
…
In addition to annual members, more than 10,000 tourists and casual riders have signed up for one-day ($5) or three-day ($12) memberships to ride the nearly 600 bikes scattered among 53 stations. An annual membership costs $85, but has been discounted to $60 until Oct. 1.
Congrats to Boston. Hope it continues to grow at a rapid pace.
I know I’ve been using & loving Wrocław’s new bike-sharing program more and more. Happy to see more and more of these popping up around the world.
Image Credit: Some rights reserved by notladj
Keen eyes will notice that the same bikes were used in the Washington DC, London, Boston, Melbourne, Minneapolis and Toronto bike share programs.
They were initially conceived by Montreal’s Bixi program.