Bike-share programs are becoming increasingly popular across the globe. In essence we have observed somewhat of an explosive growth of those programs across North America, Europe, Asia. So I decided to provide a summary of those programs in various parts of the world and hopefully that can become a guide for those of us who travel and would need access to a bike in a city across the world. Later on I plan to put together a database of the programs where I provide further information and a more extensive list of the programs and locations.
Based on data I have found so far, there are over 530 bicycle sharing programs worldwide. Here are also some stunning statistics (courtesy of US News and World Report):
The programs include various methods of membership including
- daily pass — in the range of $6-$12
- Multi-day (e.g. 3-day) — in the range of $22-$25
- Pay by month (but a commitment to an annual total membership required)
- Annual — which range from $65 to $100
The programs are becoming so popular that some of the companies that operate them for various cities are now offering programs for property owners as well — i.e. if you are operating an appartment complex, would you like to offer bike renting / sharing to your renters….a very neat idea. One example of such a company is Zagster.com
I like their strong push into getting agreements in place with even hotels — on their blog I saw an article highliting that bike sharing is "The Modern Hotel Amenity" — I can see the attraction of that. The Hyatt in Philadelphia is apparently already offering such a program…!
Going back to the objective at hand, let's start with a brief listing of cities that offer bike-share programs:
Bay Area Bike Share Program
– covers San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Redwood City, San Francisco; Pricing: Annual = $88, Annual with monthly payments = $99; 3-day = $22; 24-hours = $9, that includes 30-minutes free (if you are late returning the bike); 31-6 minutes additional is $4;
Boston – the program name is The Hubway
The program offers over 100 stations and 1000 bikes; Available in Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville; Annual membership is $85; Monthly is $24; 3-day pass is $12 and 24-hour is $6;
Denver – the program name is Denver B Cycle
This program has even more varied pricing / membership fee structure. Annual = $80; 30-day = $30; 7-day=$24; 24-hours = $8 plus you have a fee of $4 for additional 30-minutes; First 30-minutes are free (i.e. you have a grace period of 30-minutes to return the bike each time)
There is a long list of cities that offer programs – to name a few – Miami Beach, Austin, Minneapolis, Washington D.C., overseas locations – e.g. Hangzhou (China), Helsinki, Amsterdam, Paris, etc.
I will be putting together a database of those.