It may come as soon as 2010… up right now on Boston.com is the article “Boston takes first step on bike sharing program”

In my opinion there’s still plenty to do before this can become a viable reality.

A BBC article titled “Thefts puncture Paris bike scheme” brings bad news to the very popular Paris bicycle rental program.

JCDecaux, the company that operates the rental program, is having trouble replacing the loss of over half of the fleet of bicycles which have disappeared and are thought to be stolen. Each bike costs 400 euros ($519) to replace, and since the inception nearly all of the original bicycles have been replaced.

Hung from lamp posts, dumped in the River Seine, torched and broken into pieces, maintaining the network is proving expensive. Some have turned up in eastern Europe and Africa, according to press reports.
…
Various videos have appeared on YouTube showing riders taking the bikes down the steps in Montmartre, into metro stations and being tested on BMX courses.

London, San Francisco, and Singapore are all in the process of copying the model of Vélib. If the current model is unsustainable then they will have to make some quick changes to prevent such losses. (Paris, in turn, copied the idea from Lyon which doesn’t have an much of a problem.)

Although the article hits a sore note, there was this quote which made me smile a bit:

Not all the bicycles receive rough treatment however. One velib repairman reported finding one of the bikes customised with fur covered tyres.

The latest article from Boston.com is set up as a sounding board for all road users who use the bridge.

The biased title “BU bridge plans could spur road rage” comes from the prediction of Stanley Spiegel, you’ll see the quote in the third paragraph on the page. The article itself gives fair play to both sides of the story, then opens up for discussion among the community.

So, pay a visit, maybe even make your voice heard. Don’t get into too much of a tizzy over the comments, it’s not worth raising blood pressure over, but do try to read them and keep yourself informed. This is a microcosm of the daily struggle that a lot of riders face in the Boston/Cambridge area. I found that after a certain level of detachment is reached a comical sadness can set in.

Update

A genuine-appearing comment from DCR Commissioner Rick Sullivan offers up an e-mail address targetting public response for the Accelerated Bridge Program, of which the BU Bridge reconstruction falls under, and encourages people to contact them with their comments.

I think I might leave a couple there myself. Anyone else care to voice up?

As Commissioner of the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), I am sensitive to the varying perspectives that surround this and other DCR bridge projects. We are extremely fortunate that Governor Patrick has made repairing the state’s bridges a high priority through his Accelerated Bridge Program, and we are working hard to balance the public’s many viewpoints and interests as we move forward on all our projects statewide. Regarding the BU Bridge, we are still trying to find the best ways to accommodate all traffic – including cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, and pedestrians – and I would urge anyone who would like to comment on the plans to contact the agency directly at dcr.updates [at] state.ma.us. That e-mail address has been set up specifically for feedback from the public on the Accelerated Bridge Program, so you can send your comments there for any bridge project. Also let us know if you would like to receive regular updates and notices of DCR public meetings on the agency’s bridge projects. We are doing our best to create a transparent process so that everyone’s concerns can be heard.
Rick Sullivan

The comment can be found on page 13 of the comments for the article.

Yes, yes, it has been a while! Well, here is a massive roundup from the last couple of months to make up for it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Found via a Reddit link. I have not heard of Ian Hibell before, I think now I’m going to have to buy his book. His story sounds amazing; unfortunately it came to and unhappy ending as he was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in Greece.

Ian took cycling to incredible places. It seems such a waste to have a unique person like that taken away – after everywhere that he travelled and all the challenges he overcame it was another human’s crime that he could not in the end avoid.

I wonder what accomplishments that driver thinks he would have taken away for having a faster car than another guy. How is that even impressive? And because of him a true adventurer rides no more.

Makes me sad and feel sick. RIP Ian.

On second thought: Ride on, Ian.

Thank you reddit for this one!

Here are three pieces found recently in the Boston Globe. Tip o’ the hat to Shane Jordan being mentioned and quoted in the second link.

Look Ma, no car!

Only one question remains for many area commuters: Is it possible to bike to work and get there alive? Boston has a horrible reputation on the national bicycling scene and for three good reasons: lousy roads, bad drivers, and car-centric civic attitudes.

Re-cycling effort

Getting on a bike for the first time since she was 16 years old, 42-year-old Priscilla Power rode 5 miles to her Wakefield office as part of her company’s “Bike to Work Day” last month. Though she remembered how to pedal, the inexperienced biker detoured through a Dunkin’ Donuts’ parking lot to avoid a busy intersection.

10 tips for cycling commuters

In Cambridge alone, the number of people bicycling has risen 70 percent, according to this recent story.

Looks like somebody in D.C. hit a pedestrian while driving and took off. A nearby bicycle commuter witnessed and obliged himself to catch up and halt the offending car and stopped them. As it turns out, the driver was Bob Novak.

A quote Mr. Novak made previous to this incident:

Novak explained to the paper: “He was crossing on the red light. I really hate jaywalkers. I despise them. Since I don’t run the country, all I can do is yell at ’em. The other option is to run ’em over, but as a compassionate conservative, I would never do that.”

Thank you David Bono for being an upstanding citizen and model cyclist in our country’s most political city.

Update 20080729

Bob Novak is in a Boston hospital after recently falling ill on Cape Cod and being diagnosed with having a brain tumor.

Quite a bit to catch up on….

A story about a new initiative in Portland, ME offering free bike sharing called White Bike. After reading about this I went up there to try the system out, I’ll have a write-up about that separately.

Digg.com pointed me to an article at EcoWorldly briefly talking about Bicycle modification and Bicycling in general in Peru. The author says he has bicycled in Boston, which gives him an angle to safety issues of bicycling in a city, and his views on that in parts of Peru.

Make sent me to a page about a bicycle modified to blow bubbles with seeds in them while being pedaled.

Lifehacker brings up some GloGloves, gloves that have decent reflective tape designs. The article also points out that you can get some of your own tape for self-modification if you’re not into shelling out the $18 for the GloGloves.

Make with another item about Rock the Bike’s live music performances on the back of a bike.

The last links are also from Make, about a Metrocard-covered bike over at BikeHacks.

Do we have any bike lanes as short as this one? Found via Digg.