Madison, Wisconsin is the latest city to launch a B-cycle urban bike-sharing program, joining cities such as Boulder, Denver, Chicago and San Antonio. Oufitted with computers, riders can take a joy ride or commute to the office and track their mileage, calories burned and carbon offsets. It’s a great way to keep that carbon footprint small, get some exercise and not have to buy or store a bike.
This past weekend marked the program’s soft launch. So far, a total of 60 bikes are sitting in six stations in downtown Madison: Three near the state Capitol, and three near University of Wisconsin-Madison and State Street. The official launch of Madison’s Trek’s B-Cycle Service isn’t until June 1. There will be 350 bikes at 30 different stations when the program becomes fully operational.
Back in April, Trek Bicycle announced the donation of a full B-cycle bike-sharing program. The program will cost Trek roughly 2 million dollars over 5 years. Madison is the 11th city in the country to set up a B-cycle bike-sharing program.
Day passes are $10 and week passes are $30, but that only covers any ride up to 30-minutes, after which you have to start paying extra. The yearly passes offered cost $65 per year.
via: channel3000.com/ photo: first B-cycle installation in Denver
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How do I return a bike when the rack is full?
If I grab a bike at the bus stop to go to work, and because there is not a docking station near work I return the bike after work, it costs me a $75 fee. That’s only $1,500 a month – what a great deal.
What do I do if I get a flat? Push the bike to a docking station and get another bike?
So what if I ride to Boulder, CO.? Can I just pop it into a B-cycle docking station there?
There’s a cool bike sharing project on Kickstarter right now: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/312013110/social-bicycles-bikeshare-everywhere
They say they won’t need stations so most of the questions from other commenters theoretically would be answered. I made a pledge; it’d be great to see this happen!