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B-cycle, Denver’s citywide bike-sharing system, is being launched on Earth Day, April 22, 2010.
The launch will put 500 B-cycles located at 40-50 B-stations around the city, offering not only a green alternative to cars and cabs, but also encouraging healthy behavior.
The program is sponsored by the insurance company Humana. Why does one of the country’s largest health insurers want to get more people on bikes? Because just three hours of pedaling a week can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke by 50 percent, according to the League of American Bicyclists. Humana hopes that B-cycle can be one part of many solutions to America’s obesity and environmental problems, making it easier for people to lead healthier, greener lives.
Each bike is equipped with computers to track mileage, calories burned and carbon offsets. The tracking enables riders to monitor their personal fitness and contributions to the city’s green efforts while also helping to connect B-cycle users with one another at www.bcycle.com.
right on.
A friend of mine recently started working as a mechanic for this program and he is really stoked on it. He took me to their shop and showed me the bikes and all the tech behind how Trek is making a public use bicycle. The bikes have all kinds of little things going on to keep them from being tampered with and to make them user friendly. I have high hopes for the program, but it is hard to get a grasp on who will actually be using these on a regular basis. It seems as though most people around here who would actually use the bikes already have a bike. I would like to buy a membership just to support the program regardless of whether or not I ever use the bikes, but we’ll see. Thanks for writing up this story, and thanks for writing the blog you guys are doing great work.
For those interested in continuing coverage of Denver’s bike sharing experiment, my blog (Bikeway Central) will be publishing a series of interviews with some of the major players involved in developing the pilot program and rolling out the full enchilada.
Here’s a link to the original story – http://www.bikewaycentral.com/2010/04/denver-celebrates-earth-day-with-launch.html
And here’s a link to the first interview with Antoine Perretta, Undergraduate Student President at University of Denver, where B-Cycle collaborated on a pilot bike sharing program before launching the city-wide network – http://www.bikewaycentral.com/2010/04/interview-antoine-perretta-on-origins.html
Stay tuned to Bikeway Central for additional interviews, plus coverage of other bike infrastructure projects around the country…
- Aaron Dalton, Editor, Bikeway Central