[*BCM*] boston's bike sharing program - just another profit making scheme

[john saylor]

hola

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Joshua Koritz<joshua.koritz at gmail.com> wrote:
> The company that got the contract to set
> this up currently operates in Montreal, its called Bixi (www.bixi.com).  It
> operates much the same way that Zip car works:  you pay a yearly rate, then
> you pay per usage (though the first 30 minutes is free).  unlike zipcar, you
> can return a bike at a different location than you picked it up.

while i would agree this is better than nothing, i think it is doomed
to failure because it is relying on 'the market' to make it worthwhile
[which it is not from a purely economic perspective, that is, the
market's perspective]. once bixi starts losing money in boston- then
what?

i'll tell you- 'goodbye boston.'

i've had this dream about plentiful bicycles in boston. what if there
were just 10,000 free bikes around. how would the city change? i'm
sure some people would take them, but if you got the bike stores and
activists involed [BNB, broadway bike, BCM, mass-bike, ...] something
surprising might happen.

at worse, people would just take the bikes and not give them back- but
how bad would that be? isn't it a better investment than an f-22
fighter? or our escapade in iraq? or afganistan? or ...

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