We should start a thread on the possibility of holding a community bike sharing forum at Bike Bike this year. I searched the history of messages and did not find any substantial discussion on the subject. I am part of a new group at City College of San Francisco known as the Green Corps working to integrate the bicycle more completely with the campus. As part of this work, we are holding a class starting this fall known as Alternative Transportation: Bicycles that will give the students an overview of bicycle mechanics, safety and policy and provide them with hands-on experience working in the campus shop known as the Bikery.
Given such a well-staffed shop of people, this kind of program seems to have much potential to carefully put together a good number of bikes from donated parts and frames. As such we need to think about how these bikes can be put to use, and it seems natural to loan them out to students who would like to try commuting to school via bike. Hence an accelerated birth rate of bicycle commuters is in order.
Thinking along these lines, I attended the recent bike sharing conference here in San Francisco. We heard from many people there about the preexisting options San Francisco has for the implementation of a bike sharing network. We also touched on concern for having diversity within the system as San Francisco actually realistically only has one primarily-city-funded option with the obligation to give the owner of the City's transit shelters, Clear Channel, the first right to refusal of a contract.
It was specifically noted that most of these suggested preexisting systems, specifically exemplified by some major cities in Europe, are fleets composed of a monoculture of cruiser-type bikes. This would limit their use to the flat lands such as the Mission and Market corridors. Their limitations would also necessitate the wide-spread use of automobiles for the regular replenishment of bikes taken on one-way trips down from higher ground. In addition, a limited term-of-service duration and the impossibility of long-term loaning would not reach the widest possible population. It would be a shame to not consider alternatives now and end up feeling stuck with a dominant system of monocultured bicycles. The time is ripe to move with a purpose of preempting market dominance and that is where consideration of a long-overdue community bike sharing network comes into play.
There are undoubtedly a lot of obstacles to overcome, especially the disabling reality of theft and liability and also consideration of location. Liability is perhaps the tallest hurdle to leap, especially in this notoriously litigious state of California. On this matter we have consulted Bill Burton of Arcata Library Bikes, the largest bike sharing network in the country, who has been at the forefront of setting a precedent for the viability of insuring bicycle sharing. And there is word of a possibility of support from his organization for the development of such a system. Visit his website here (http://arcata.com/greenbikes/) and of particular interest is his book Anybody's Library Bike, which is a guide for setting up such a community bike sharing system. There is also the question of where such bike sharing stations can be maintained and the Green Corps hopes to have City College help lead the way.
The Green Corps has ensured space for the Bike Bike conference at CCSF's downtown campus and as such would like to seek and provide enthusiastic support for the development of such important community-supported infrastructure. Let us get inspired to meet and discuss where we've been, what we've learned as well as the possibilities and challenges ahead.
Joe Abrams a proud member of the CCSF Green Corps