Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Bike Rentals Arrive in DC

I was walking from my office to the Metro station the other day and noticed this new bike rack in Farragut Square. It's SmartBikeDC, a new program from DDOT and Clear Channel Outdoor (an advertising company).

Upside: The price is right -- $40 for the year with unlimited rentals.

Downside: Locations are clustered in downtown DC and you can only rent them for three hours at a stretch.

Arlington County Board member Jay Fisette is spearheading an effort to bring kiosks, possibly including bike rentals, to Arlington. For $40 a year, I'd definitely sign up! On the weekends, a bike would be way quicker to get from, say, Ballston to Courthouse than waiting up to 20 minutes each way for an Orange Line train.

1 comment:

Susanna Murley said...

Eric Gilliland of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association was on the Kojo Nnamdi show today talking about bicycle commuting.

"[We should show motorists that] the more people who are on bikes, the less congested the streets are, the more parking spaces they have, the lower will be the price of gasoline."

Listen at: http://wamu.org/audio/kn/08/08/k2080812-21921.asx