Denver Rolling Out Bike Sharing Program

Kudos to the city of Denver for piloting a new bikeshare program.

As reported on Examiner.com, the program will let city residents and visitors borrow one of 250 bikes located at stations in and around downtown.

The same story notes that Washington D.C. already has a bikeshare program rolling along, with Minneapolis considering a program of its own.

In European cities - particularly Paris, but also in places like Brussels and Vienna - bikesharing is a popular means of getting around town. Basically, you can borrow a bike from a computerized docking station, use it to get where you need to go and return it either to the same station or to a different terminal nearer your destination when you're done.

Personally, I believe that biking and bikesharing should be given serious consideration by US mayors. The costs of setting up bike share programs seem trivial compared to the massive amounts of land, resources, manpower and maintenance needed by conventional public transport systems (trains, subways and buses). And of course bikeshare programs have the added benefit of giving users a workout, which should theoretically help reduce obesity levels and thus reduce healthcare costs (for individuals and governments).

Of course, in some Northern U.S. cities, bikesharing might only be viable in warmer months, but presumably city planners could examine whether Northern European cities (Scandinavian) have a way of getting around this problem.