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. <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 10:48 AM, john saylor <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:js0000@gmail.com">js0000@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">hola<br>
<div class="im"><br>
On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Joshua Koritz<<a href="mailto:joshua.koritz@gmail.com">joshua.koritz@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
</div><div class="im">> The company that got the contract to set<br>
> this up currently operates in Montreal, its called Bixi (<a href="http://www.bixi.com" target="_blank">www.bixi.com</a>). It<br>
> operates much the same way that Zip car works: you pay a yearly rate, then<br>
> you pay per usage (though the first 30 minutes is free). unlike zipcar, you<br>
> can return a bike at a different location than you picked it up.<br>
<br>
</div>while i would agree this is better than nothing, i think it is doomed<br>
to failure because it is relying on 'the market' to make it worthwhile<br>
[which it is not from a purely economic perspective, that is, the<br>
market's perspective]. once bixi starts losing money in boston- then<br>
what?<br>
<br>
i'll tell you- 'goodbye boston.'<br>
<br>
i've had this dream about plentiful bicycles in boston. what if there<br>
were just 10,000 free bikes around. how would the city change? i'm<br>
sure some people would take them, but if you got the bike stores and<br>
activists involed [BNB, broadway bike, BCM, mass-bike, ...] something<br>
surprising might happen.<br>
<br>
at worse, people would just take the bikes and not give them back- but<br>
how bad would that be? isn't it a better investment than an f-22<br>
fighter? or our escapade in iraq? or afganistan? or ...<br>
<br>
--<br>
<font color="#888888">\js [ - . . . ]<br>
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