The mile-high city celebrates Earth Day by launching its Denver B-cycle bike sharing program on Thursday.
The system will be the largest in the US, sporting 500 bicycles available at 50 bike-share kiosks located across the city when fully operational. It starts with 360 to 400 sturdy red bikes.
It's the first bike-share roll-out in the US this year, to be followed by Minneapolis-St. Paul and Boston this summer. Washington DC is currently the only other bike-share system in the US, although much larger systems are up and running in Montreal and Mexico City.
Costs
The annual subscription is $65. Access for shorter periods is $5 for 24 hours, $20 for a week and $30 for a month. The first 30 minutes of use is free; charges begin after that.
Users with annual subscriptions can simply swipe their RFID cards at the rental stations to take a bike and drop them off at a kiosk near their destination. Based on experiences of other bike-share programs, the operators expect the biggest problem to be redistributing bikes around the system. For instance, users have a tendency to ride to downhill locations but find other means of transportation when returning uphill.
The availability of the bicycles is visible on a map of the city posted at the B-cycle website; a mobile app to locate unused bicycles is being created.
Operators
The Denver bike-share program was created by Humana (health care), Trek Bicycle and Crispin Porter + Bogusk (advertising). It's operated by the non-profit Denver Bike Sharing.
It sprung from a bike-sharing program — Freewheelin' — supplied by Humana during the Democratic National Convention in Denver in 2008. The Freewheelin' program in Minneapolis-St. Paul during the Republican National Convention is expected to result in a bike-sharing program launch there this summer.
The bikes are equipped with GPS systems so health-conscious users can chart their mileage. This connects to a website where carbon offset, calories burned and other specifics are recorded. The GPS system also enables Denver Bcycle to keep track of its bikes.
Other bike-share cities
At launch, Denver's bike sharing system will be the largest in the US, surpassing the SmartBike system in Washington DC that has about 100 bicycles at 10 stations. In North America, however, it's dwarfed by the Bixi system in Montreal that has 5,000 bicycles at 400 stations and the Ecobici system in Mexico City that launched in February with 1,100 bicycles at 85 stations.
The next bike-share launch will probably be the Nice Ride Minnesota system in Minneapolis-St. Paul with 1,000 bicycles parked at 80 stations. The seasonal system created by Bixi will operate April through November.
Seattle hosted a bike-share summit last summer. Three vendors submitted demonstrations of their bike share systems – Bixi, B-cycle, and a local concern named Bike Share Group.
Also, if you want to encourage B-cycle to check out your city, enter your zip code at B-cycle's Who Wants it More. Looks like Austin wants it more than anyone else right now…
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