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"If you live in certain parts of the world, like France, Spain, China, Italy, or Germany, you already are familiar with the joys of having an extensive bike-sha
by jarek 14y ago
"If you live in certain parts of the world, like France, Spain, China, Italy, or Germany, you already are familiar with the joys of having an extensive bike-sharing system readily available. North America is slowly catching on, with cities like Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York City gradually rolling out bike-share systems. "
Or, you know, Canada, where Bixi developed the system that now powers Boston's, D.C.'s, and NYC's shares.
- apendleton 14y agoYeah, that bit was weird -- it implies a contrast in maturity and scale between North America and Europe that seems not to have basis in fact. Germany's largest bikeshare system, per Wikipedia, only has 3,000 bikes, which is smaller than Montreal's. Even DC's, currently the largest in the US, is on the same order of magnitude, at ~1700 bikes, and is a well-established system at this point (over two years old, with somewhere around 2.5 million rides so far).
- darklajid 14y agoCall a bike, just one of the available systems, has 7000 bikes acc. to the German Wikipedia entry (source is from 2012). Other national systems are listed, with one quoted as 'starting out as biggest service in 2010', having around 3000. But let's ignore the numbers for a second (absolute numbers make not a lot of sense anyway, imho. Per capita, maybe?). The real feature is what the headline of this article (wrongly) implied. That you can drive to your friend's place and 'return' the bike in front of his door. Or in front of your favorite pub. Or cinema. No docking stations, period.