Posts Tagged ‘bike rental’

Vote for a bike rental system in Detroit

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

B cycle bike rentalB cycle is one of the emerging players in public bike rental market. Cities like Denver and Minneapolis are looking to roll out these B cycles.

If you can get past the anti-car vibe, there’s a video describing how B cycles work on their web site.

Imagine how cool this would be in places like downtown Royal Oak, Ferndale, or Detroit? It seems we would integrate rental stations with the proposed streetcar line on Woodward to really increase transportation options for those wanting to get to Eastern Market, Corktown, or Belle Isle.

This may not be so far fetched either as we’ve been discussing rental options with Detroit officials.

What can you do to help us move this forward? Please take a minute to vote for Detroit (ZIP code 48226 works) on the B cycle web site.

Of course Wheelhouse Detroit already rents bikes. Wouldn’t a B cycle overlap with what they’re already providing? Perhaps a little, but I think the Wheelhouse rentals are aimed more at recreational use, touring, and exploring. A B cycle system is aimed more at short term transportation, running errands, and going between rental stations.

Wheelhouse Detroit Bike Tours

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

img_2549In just a short period of time, the Wheelhouse Detroit has garnered some serious fandom. During a recent talk at the Green Garage, I mentioned them and the crowd broke into well-deserved applause.

So the Free Press is showing them a little bit of love too with this article.

Throughout the spring and fall, and occasionally in the summer, the store — run by Detroiters Karen Gage and Kelli Kavanaugh — hosts bike tours that range from about 10 miles to 30 miles or more.

“We have so much fun biking around the city, just going out and experiencing it and seeing new things,” said Gage, 33. “Detroit has a lot of cool neighborhoods and interesting people and great architecture. These bike tours are allowing us to present that.”

The emphasis on guided tours and bike rentals are more examples of how the Wheelhouse has broken the mold for bike shops in Metro Detroit. They’re not just selling bikes.

They certainly taking advantage of Detroit’s relatively high density of unique and historic sites that are never too far of a ride from the bike shop.

The Free Press also included this video coverage from one of their recent Detroit tours.

And like many other of the small, entrepreneurial businesses in the greater Downtown area, they’re accepting Detroit Cheer.

Disclosure: I am a volunteer guide for two Wheelhouse tours this summer.

Mandatory Bicycle Helmets Laws

Saturday, December 6th, 2008
Photo by Dan Burden / www.pedbikeimages.org

Photo by Dan Burden / www.pedbikeimages.org

Laws that require bicyclists to use helmets are certainly the result of good intentions — making cycling safer. Unfortunately these laws result in reduced health and safety by discouraging cycling.

First, let’s look at Australia, where a mandatory bicycle helmet law went into effect in 1992.  The results are “ambiguous” according to a report from the Bicycle Federation of Australia

Any countries or jurisdictions considering the introduction of compulsory helmet wearing laws should look very closely at the available data to see if it still supports such a move in light of the ambiguous Australian experience. It is essential that reliable evaluation methodologies be recognised, and the common shortcomings of both databases and interpretation which bedevilled the early Australian evaluations be avoided.

Resources devoted, on the European model, to improving facilities for cyclists and to reducing urban speed limits are likely to be far more cost-effective than the introduction of helmet legislation. These measures must be considered as a valid alternative to helmet legislation or as a vital and integral part of such legislation.

It is crucial that a good and extensive data base of regional or national hospital admissions, and if possible hospital casualty department treatments be assembled for the decade or so preceding the legislation. This is needed to allow a reliable comparison with data collected after the introduction of any legislation.

Note that the second paragraph reiterates a point we’ve made before.  We’d make bicycling much safer in Michigan if we devoted more time promoting safe bicycle facilties (e.g. bike lanes) rather than helmets.

This conclusion is also supported by an article published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine:

In both Western Australia and New Zealand, helmet use increased from negligible levels to more than 80% in around eight years, yet follow-up studies did not show long-term benefits for the cyclist populations relative to control groups. Study of injury trends in each state of Australia for the period when helmet laws were passed shows stable characteristics, revealing no evidence of extra prevention due to legislation coming into force.

And this same article notes that mandatory helmet laws significantly discourage cycling at a time when we need more people getting exercise.

The one clear population-level effect of helmet laws that has been widely reported is the deterrence of cycling. In every case where data are available, cycle use has fallen by 25-50% when a helmet law was enforced. This has a direct consequence on the risk of death in cycling. Study of international evidence points to a reliable relationship between the amount of cycling and the risk in cycling12-a power-law relationship with an index value of around 0.4. A fall in cycle use of 50% would increase risk per cyclist by more than 50%, whereas an increase in cycling of 100% would reduce the risk by almost 40%. Public health would benefit substantially. A report by the Commons Select Committee on Health specifically cited a resurgence in cycling as ‘probably the most effective response’ that could be made to address the obesity ‘time bomb’. It is most likely that road deaths would fall overall; even in Britain one hour of cycle use is not more likely to result in a road death than one hour of driving, because the third-party risk from cycling is so low.

The last point about third-parties is an interesting one.  Motor vehicle crashes with pedestrians and cyclists too often result in death.  Cycling crashes do not.  The more we can promote bicycle use in place of motor vehicle use, the more we can improve overall safety.

This is especially true in our downtowns where there is a greater concentration of pedestrians.

And one way of encouraging a shift from car use to bike use is through bike rentals.  Paris is the world leader in bike rentals.  They have over 20,000 rental bikes throughout their city.  The bike rentals are free for the first half-hour.  One only needs a credit card to place a deposit on the bicycle — and it’s fully automated.  There is a bike rental station about every 1,000 feet so they’re never too far away.

In it’s first year, there were 27.5 million trips made on these Paris bikes, or about 120,000 per day.

What did it cost Paris?  Zero.  An advertiser paid for the system and subsidizes its use in exchange for advertising space.

Bikes Belong has an very cool video demonstration of this Paris system.

It’s been so successful that other cities such as Washington D.C. and Chicago are pursuing similar systems.

So what does this have to do with mandatory helmet laws?  There is no reliable and safe way to rent helmets with these bike rental systems.

From Austrailia to Israel, mandatory bicycle helmet laws are a significant obstacle to these bicycle rentals.

Overall, the safety results are quite conclusive.  Mandatory bike helmet laws are no substitute for designing our roads for safe bicycling and making it easy for people to choose bicycling.

Green Tea Bike Highlights

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

Last Thursday was another monthly Green Tea event, this time promoting biking in Detroit. It was a great success with a very large and diverse turnout.

Wheelhouse Bike Tours

The Tea began with an introduction from our hosts Kelli and Karen from the Wheelhouse Detroit bike shop on the Detroit Riverwalk. The shop specializes in rentals, service, accessories, and bike tours. They have a freebie Wednesday night ride (9 PM). Now the are offering guided Neighborhood Tours, some of which include lunch. And of course you can rent a Wheelhouse bike as well. Check out the Wheelhouse web site for further details.

400 Miles of Bike Lanes

Next, I spoke to the group about Detroit greenways and the Non-Motorized Transportation Master Plan. The latter was developed by Giffels-Webster and was funded by MDOT. The plan inventoried the many cycling destinations across Detroit, including parks, schools, cultural centers, recreational centers, etc. It looked at how to best connect them with a network of on-road bike facilities — bike lanes and shared signed routes.

In summary, the plan calls for nearly 400 miles of bikes lanes across the City of Detroit that could be implemented during normal road maintenance by simply re-striping existing roads. [Additional details regarding this plan will be posted to m-bike in the upcoming week.]

And while this plan was accepted by Detroit’s Traffic Engineering Division, it had not gone before City Council. The GreenWays Initiative and MTGA worked to change that. Last month Giffels-Webster gave a presentation of the plan to Council President Ken Cockrel’s Green Task Force. We discussed the plan with other City Council members and distributed the copies of it.

On September 8th, City Council will have a discussion of this non-motorized plan. We need pedestrians and cyclists to attend and voice their support during the public comment period. The Council is meeting on the 13th floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center on September 8th at 11:15AM.

Biking to Eastern Market

Next, the group hopped on their bikes and rode from the Wheelhouse to Eastern Market. We were greeted at Shed 2 by Market President Dan Carmody and a box of healthy snacks. We discussed how to make Detroit more bike friendly and how the Dequindre Cut trail will be an excellent connection between the Riverwalk and the Market.

Special thanks to Kathryn Underwood and others for helping make this Green Tea a big success.

Bike Rentals at the National Conventions

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Bikes Belong, the bike industry advocacy group certainly seems to be making some smart political moves right now.

Their latest is a partnership with Humana to provide 1,000 free bike rentals at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. The program is called Freewheelin’ and so far it’s been a huge success in Denver.

Just one day into the Democratic National Convention, more than 1,400 convention delegates, visitors and Denver residents are ready to vote yes … for Freewheelin. The innovative bike-sharing program from Humana and Bikes Belong recorded 1,429 rides, 2,937 miles ridden, 92,000 calories burned and a carbon-footprint reduction of just more than one metric ton.

“If the first day of the DNC is any indication, bike-sharing has tremendous potential in the U.S.,” said Jonathan Lord, M.D., Humana’s chief innovation officer. “Riding a bike is great for your body, great for the environment, and a lot of fun. So many people are returning their bikes with big smiles on their faces, reminded of all the fun they had riding bikes as kids.”

Here’s a video showing the program in action.

There are additional details on the Bikes Belong web site.