People use share bikes for many reasons, including health benefits and even because they like the design.
Richard Masoner/Bay Area Bike Share launch in San Jose CA/Flickr
Urban planners often hope bike-share schemes might reduce reliance on cars and help with congestion. But very few of those who use share bikes have switched from driving.
oBike was the first dockless bike sharing scheme in Australia.
DANIEL POCKETT/AAP
Dockless or stationless bike sharing is risky business, relying a bit too much on common decency. Bike sharing schemes can work, but they may need to forego user convenience for bike safety.
Citibike station in midtown Manhattan.
Jim Henderson
Dozens of US cities have launched bike-share programs in the past decade. There have been bumps – critics want wider access, and cities want bikes stored out of the way – but bike sharing is on a roll.
In both Indian and Australian cities, cyclists who deliver goods and services have to take it slow.
Malini Sur
Cycling is a low-cost and non-polluting way to make deliveries in congested cities. Slow cyclists should be recognised as good for the economy and environment, not treated like second-class citizens.
Bike-sharing schemes work when users leave the bikes in safe places that don’t inconvenience others, so why doesn’t everyone do that?
David Moir/AAP
Mental short-cuts guide our everyday decision-making. Unfortunately, five biases can lead us to deny responsibility for our poor decisions and are creating problems for share-bike schemes.
Share-bikes can litter our cities and be found in rivers, up trees, in gutters, and strewn around public places.
Obikes in unusual places/Facebook
If we’re going to intervene to stop the dumping of share bikes, we need to understand the bad behaviour in the first place, then design effective measures to change how bike users behave.
After nearly a decade of operation, Brisbane’s CityCycle scheme still needs to be subsidised.
Ash Kyd/flickr
Many short-term bike-hiring programs have been launched amid much fanfare, only for their popularity to decline soon after. Several key factors need to be in place for a program to work.
Information about who rides where and when is useful for city planners and policymakers, but also a valuable commodity in its own right.
AAP
Australians can see the impact of dockless bike sharing on the streets of their cities. The huge store of data collected about user journeys is less visible, but just as important.
There is more to bike-share schemes than first meets the eye. As they grow in global popularity, the economic models behind them become increasingly diversified.
Cycling is a great form of exercise, and what better time to get started than the new year. But before you launch yourself up a mountain, review these tips from an experienced MAMIL.
In one Melbourne case study, half-a-dozen bikes occupying the same space as a parked car generated, on average, nearly four times as much retail spending.
flickr/Richard Drdul
Pro-bike policies can boost local business. In one Melbourne case study, the average hourly retail spending from six bikes was $97.20 compared to $27 from one car occupying an equivalent space.
Cyclists have every right to be on the road - not that you’d know it from the abuse they get.
ymgerman/Shutterstock.com
Cycling has flatlined in Australia since 2011, with many people citing safety concerns as the main reason not to ride. Wider recognition of cyclists’ right to be on the roads would help to boost the numbers.
BMW makes its cars available to the average punter.
Kevin Hackert
BMW has announced that its pay-as-you-go car club, DriveNow, will launch in London, following on from Berlin, Vienna and San Francisco. DriveNow works by giving users access to a fleet of BMWs and Minis…
Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, offers an idea of how pleasant and practical the Velotopian dream of a bike-friendly city might be.
AAP/Visit Denmark
The Australian television satire Utopia invited the public along for a laugh that architects and planners have been sharing for decades. We laugh at the idea of utopia to disassociate ourselves from the…
Bikesharing has exploded in popularity in recent years, including in New York with the Citi Bike program, but the pricing structures have been a cause for concern.
NYCDOT/Flickr via CC BY-SA-ND
Bikesharing has boomed in Europe and North America in recent years following decades of slow growth since its introduction on the streets of Amsterdam in 1965. Like any industry undergoing rapid expansion…
Helmet-free on Washington DC’s Captial Bikeshare.
Ben Schumin
Public bikesharing schemes are sprouting up in towns and cities worldwide. The bikes are generally provided without helmets, and this has led to concerns regarding the risk of serious head injuries. It…
Write or say anything publicly that is remotely critical of cyclist behaviour in Australia, and you will incur the wrath of a growing body of active and media savvy cycling advocacy groups. This is the…