AUSTIN: A BIKE FRIENDLY CITY I find myself in Austin this weekend to perform in the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. After finding food and filling our bellies with BBQ, the first thing I noticed was that Austin had a bike share program (called BCycle). Ive heard a lot about Bike Share programs popping up and being successful in other cities, and with Providence recently announcing a program of their own, my interest had been especially piqued lately. I realized I had some extra time tonight and decided to venture off on my own in Austin with the aid of some BCycle wheels beneath me. HOW IT WORKS: BCycle has set up stations with spaces for 8-12 bikes all over the city. At any station, using a convenient touch screen menu, you can buy a 24-hour pass for $8. (Longer passes are available on their website from one week to one year for $80). A pass gives you access to any bike in any station at any time 24-hours a day. Each time you take out a bike, you have 30 minutes to park the bike in any station. If you dont make it back to a station within the 30 minutes, you are automatically charged an extra $4 to add another 30 minutes to your return time. I found the whole process to be quite simple. Very good signage and even helpful information right on the Dashboard of the bike. THE BIKE: The BCycle program appears to be Trek branded. Each bike is a basic cruiser style bike with 3-gears, front and rear brakes on the handlebars, kickstand, a basket in the front with a cable lock included, and built front and rear lights. Its a full package outside of a helmet. Once I got over the initial wobbles of riding a new style of bike, I thought the bike handled pretty well, and was mostly comfortable. The brakes could use some improvement; I would not trust them in an emergency situation. Also, the bike could use more than 3 gears; I felt that I really needed one more gear between 2 and 3. OVERALL: As a visitor to this city, I loved having such easy access to the bike share program, I really feel like I was able to see parts of the city I wouldnt have otherwise. It felt like a more personal and meaningful experience. That being said, I feel like the Bike Share is more designed for the local bike commuters than it is for tourists. Since each ride is limited to 30 minutes, it is hard to enjoy a ride or take a break at a destination that doesnt have a station. I understand that the purpose of the 30-minute limit is to guarantee availability of the bikes. Even though the stations are liberally scattered throughout the city; if your destination (or even reason) for needing the bike is outside of the radius of the stations, you feel like you are on the clock and every stop a long red light can be aggravating. During my ride, I was able to daisy chain my ride at a few stations to avoid the overage fine by finding a station, parking, and then re-renting the same bike (all covered by the original $8). I was very happy to be able to ride around Austin, and it made me want to visit any and every city that has a Bike Share program, my only wish is that they extend the time limit to even 45 or 60 minutes. BIKING IN AUSTIN: It was very nice and easy to see that Austin was a bike friendly city. While you will always be able to find bike haters, the ratio of good to bad was much more favorable than other cities I am more familiar with riding a bike through. Austin had bike lanes all over and even (mostly) friendly drivers. BIKE SHARE IN PROVIDENCE: I am still not convinced that the bike share program will be as successful in Providence as it is in Austin, or Boston, or NYC, but I am happy to see that Providence is taking the steps towards a safer environment for cyclists. THANKS FOR THE SET OF WHEELS, AUSTIN
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 03:27:30 +0000
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