Bicycles in Denver for the Democratic National Convention
Bike sharing is alive in the U.S.! At the Democratic National Convention in Denver and the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Freewheelin is running a bicycle sharing program. Humana (a health insurance company—can you guess why they support people riding bicycles?) and Bikes Belong have partnered to put these bike sharing programs together. They seem to be catering to the delegates attending the convention with bicycle stations placed near the convention hotels, but the program will go on after the conventions end. See an article at Forbes.com for more info on the program.
So far, it looks like they had good success in Denver. They surpassed their mileage goal of 25,000 miles by logging 26,493 miles with 5,552 rides. That puts them well on track to meet their combined ridership goal of 10,000 riders by the end of the Republican National Convention. It will be interesting to compare the ridership between the two conventions to see if one party is more willing to participate in a bike-sharing program.
The good news for residents of Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul is that Freewheelin is leaving the cities some of their bikes as a pilot bike sharing program after the conventions end. It will be in the cities’ hands now as to what they do with it, but we can only hope for the best.
Now we just need to host a political convention in Miami or Fort Lauderdale to kick start a bike sharing program down here. Dave Barry thinks the bikes would get stolen down here, but it looks to me like Freewheelin has a pretty well-planned sharing program. If we can’t get them to come down here, at least we can learn from their example.
Photo by Flickr user kitseeborg.
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