Cycle hire scheme

[ffutures]

Three or four weeks ago a yellow "parking bay suspended" sign went up over three car parking spaces next to the place where I usually park my motorbike at work, saying that the work would start at the beginning of last week

Comments

Red bikes

[3pitaka]

Where I live, there was a no-pay scheme which allowed people to pick up a bike painted bright red, ride it around for as long as wanted, and then drop it off for someone to pick it up. The bike was pretty low quality, and presumably the idea was that the cost of painting and repairing the bike up for resale would be more than the bike was worth. The scheme may, however, have underestimated the extent to which some people are determined just to wreck any good thing in order to prove that they have power.

It's an inherent tension in relations between authorities and citizens. On the one hand, citizens want to be trusted; they don't want to be condescended to or treated like infants; and they don't want a lot of regulation, or a lot of expense, impeding their enjoyment of public goods. And that's all very fair stuff to think.

On the other hand, when given all that, their first instinct is to go and trash it as a way of thumbing their noses at authority. Which, in turn, leads to them not being trusted, and being treated like infants. It's a vicious cycle.

Now the Red Bike idea has been resurrected with a new twist; you pick up the bike and leave your credit card number, and you get the bike for a limited period of time -- like a library book. If you don't bring it back on time, or you bring it back damaged, you pay for it; if you do bring it back, no problem. But in any case there are no machines and no fee schedules. That would put a crimp in the basic idea of the plan, which is to encourage bike riding.

Re: Red bikes

[ffutures]

They've tried schemes like that in the UK with mixed success - see links to the cambridge scheme in armb's post. Given London's size I think the scheme pretty much has to be one that requires a quick turn-around, or they will soon run out of bikes.