[*BCM*] boston's bike sharing program - just another profit making scheme

[Rob Arnold]

For the cost of the Big Dig, you could've purchased three $1,100 bikes for
every person in the state of Massachusetts. Every person. In the state.

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 10:48 AM, john saylor <js0000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> hola
>
> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Joshua Koritz<joshua.koritz at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The company that got the contract to set
> > this up currently operates in Montreal, its called Bixi (www.bixi.com).
> It
> > operates much the same way that Zip car works:  you pay a yearly rate,
> then
> > you pay per usage (though the first 30 minutes is free).  unlike zipcar,
> you
> > can return a bike at a different location than you picked it up.
>
> while i would agree this is better than nothing, i think it is doomed
> to failure because it is relying on 'the market' to make it worthwhile
> [which it is not from a purely economic perspective, that is, the
> market's perspective]. once bixi starts losing money in boston- then
> what?
>
> i'll tell you- 'goodbye boston.'
>
> i've had this dream about plentiful bicycles in boston. what if there
> were just 10,000 free bikes around. how would the city change? i'm
> sure some people would take them, but if you got the bike stores and
> activists involed [BNB, broadway bike, BCM, mass-bike, ...] something
> surprising might happen.
>
> at worse, people would just take the bikes and not give them back- but
> how bad would that be? isn't it a better investment than an f-22
> fighter? or our escapade in iraq? or afganistan? or ...
>
> --
> \js  [  - . .  .   ]
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