On your bike: Amsterdam to take action on shared cycle schemes

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worldcitizen1723
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Joined: Mon 1st Mar 2010 12:10 am

Re: On your bike: Amsterdam to take action on shared cycle schemes

Post by worldcitizen1723 »

amsterdam is one of the few cities where shared bikes are not necessary. Residents have 1 or 2 bikes each and there are plenty of rental shops for tourists. This type of scheme works best in cities that are transitioning to a bike culture and trying to root one...not in a city that IS a bike city!


CopenhagenCouple
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Re: On your bike: Amsterdam to take action on shared cycle schemes

Post by CopenhagenCouple »

Have to disagree on this one.

Finding a place to park your bike (“legally”) in the center can be a bit of a pain in the part of your body that might already be a bit sore from riding all day. Bike sharing schemes, if done right, could help counter this problem by effectively reducing the number of individual bikes necessary to reach the same number of “passenger-kilometers”.

From an environmental perspective there is also a massive waste of resources (materials and energy) related to the many bikes in circulation, reducing the number of bikes in circulation would obviously reduce the environmental impact.

In general the “sharing-economy” or whatever you want to call it is, IMO, one of the key elements in maintaining a “modern” and prosperous lifestyle whilst not simultaneously fucking the environment, and, btw, also fucking each other over constantly in the struggle for increasingly scarce resources.
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spidergawd
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Re: On your bike: Amsterdam to take action on shared cycle schemes

Post by spidergawd »

In london we've had them for 2 or 3 years and whilst not free their docking stations seem to be carefully sited in conjunction with councils and planners. They are popular with workers morning and evening and tourists during the daytimes. The charge is to pay for maintenance and docking inforstructure. Recently a chinese company just more or less dumped a thousand bikes wherever they could, but still a charge through an app to release the brakes. Also I dont detect any maintenance back up. I think what the council didnt pick up for pavement obstruction, couldn't get my w/chair past a few times, then the local kids just hacked and nicked them.Probably a loss leader to get a toe hold like Uber. I think they're basically a cool idea though from an environmental impact and heajth angle. Bloody heavy things though. :wink:
What a long strange trip it is.
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