http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2009/07/16/yikes-bikes-city-ponders-plan-for-660-shared-bikes Comments On: Yikes Bikes! City Ponders Plan for 660 Shared Bikes by Sarah Mirk en-us Copyright 2009 Portland Mercury. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Portland Mercury readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Portland Mercury. webmaster@portlandmercury.com (Portland Mercury Webmaster) Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0800 Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:30:00 -0800 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by orgengine]]> Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:13:18 -0700 Portland Mercury
$4,000 includes start-up costs. Replacing a lost bike once the program is up and running isn't going to cost $4,000. A decent rental bike shouldn't cost more than $500; if they are actually proposing world-class racing bikes, then I agree this is a bad idea.

"Besides, you fail to mention how these bikes are theft-proof,"

Zipcars aren't theft proof. Nothing is theft proof. Go back and read my initial comment. My point was simply that protection from incidental or intentional damage from legitimate users is built into this program, unlike the yellow bike program; thus, comparisons between the two are apples-to-oranges.
Posted by GLV]]> Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:56:45 -0700 Portland Mercury Posted by orgengine]]> Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:42:54 -0700 Portland Mercury Posted by jeff]]> Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:22:57 -0700 Portland Mercury
Have you ever used Zipcar? If you get in your car and its trashed or wrecked, you report it. A fairly simple investigative process ensues, and the responsible party is held liable. It's really not that complicated.
Posted by GLV]]> Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:50:51 -0700 Portland Mercury tH\VF5!V+00HY?jgK7@iA<_(B0Mii*:@e9Iq]]>
What prevents people from trashing their rented bikes and still getting their deposit back? We don't have the tudes that the Euro's seem to have for their public property.

Why not just subsidize people getting their own bikes, so that they take care of them, instead of this program that tourists will never use? Shit, tourists still take cabs from the airport when they can take MAX at 1/10 the cost.
Posted by ?pqM)mH{5i*7V7wVNiH?tcvUk'j>tH\VF5!V+00HY?jgK7@iA<_(B0Mii*:@e9Iq]]> Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:14:40 -0700 Portland Mercury
1) yellow bikes: Free, available to anyone at anytime, including homeless people who stole them and sold them for crack money and/or threw them off the Burnside Bridge.

2) This program: Like Zipcar, requires identification and a credit card, which will be charged something like $500 if a bike you rent disappears.

Are we clear?
Posted by GLV]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:29:12 -0700 Portland Mercury Posted by Andy Mesa]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:01:54 -0700 Portland Mercury Posted by monpetitloup]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:45:33 -0700 Portland Mercury
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afE44cHNkEg
Posted by Chunty McHutchence]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:56:15 -0700 Portland Mercury Posted by D]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:20:54 -0700 Portland Mercury Posted by klemz]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:58:56 -0700 Portland Mercury Posted by D]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:40:27 -0700 Portland Mercury