Arkansas Blog

Austin tried this by getting used bikes, or even retrieving them from the trash; refurbishing them; and painting them yellow. I don't know how successful that's been, though.

Damn I wish some bank would start a program like this with women folks. You'd just swing by a certain location, give the pass word and pick out the woman of yer choice. Then, in my case, about 2.7 minutes later I'd bring her back around the corner and put her back in the woman's rack and walk off whistling a happy tune.

It would sure soothe an unsettled world, cut the sales of pornography by 90%, and bring happiness to the working man. Why....the divorce rate would plummet! I know....I'm a liberal...got my head stuck in the clouds.

Arkansas Tech does this...or at least they did back when I was there. I would frequently check out the bikes to go ride out at Nebo or some other places.

We had this at Arkansas Tech, but you had to turn your student ID or something to gain access. The university had purchased bicycles with student activity fees. I think it was a fairly popular program: they had fairly nice bikes, and you could check out 3 or 4, put them in a truck and go to a nearby state park and ride, or just ride around the backstreets of Russellville, which were plenty boring but right there.

Hmmm...and soon UALR will have two major bike paths connected to its campus. Ahem, ahem....anyone listening over there?

The "Yellow Bike" program has worked well in a number of cities... DC just initiated a public bike rental program, and Paris (France) has their VeloLib program that's been a huge success.

Bicycles and college students are a natural match... I'm not real familiar with how it is now, but back when I was a student we didn't have a whole lot of many, but still, gas was like 50 cents a gallon or less. But a student can get a bike, and it'll take him or her to class and back home, to the grocery store or barbershop, down to the Dairy Queen, or find some sweet young thing to go ride with you and y'all will be shopping for a tandem in no time flat. Cars have payments, insurance, parking costs, registration fees, property taxes, maintenance costs, and still have the audacity to cost you $4 a gallon for gas. A bike only costs you tires, tubes, and groceries...

This is altogether a good thing, provided they can keep the athlaleets up there from swiping and fencing them...

Hey let me know when they start this program. I could use a free bike. I could dig up my old Fayette Nam student ID (old ones back when your SS# was your student #) and check one out and let them try to track me down.

I am probably still remembered at Levertt Gardens but no one knows where I am now. Is Levertt Gardens still there or did the school buy it like they tried to buy the highschool?

Anyway, let us know if they start it up. I could make a weekend of it and tour the campus and the Jones Memorial alley off Dickson. Then the bike and I would leave town under cover of darkness like Matt wishes he had done.

Razorblade -- "soon UALR will have two major bike paths connected to its campus."

Really? which ones? I thought the only "major" bike path was the River Trail, and the Little Rock side is too dangerous to ride on...

Click on my name for more information about the recently installed DC Bike program. It seems to be pretty secure.

From the article:

For a $40 annual membership fee, SmartBike users can check out three-speed bicycles for three hours at a time. SmartBike subscribers who keep bicycles longer than the three-hour maximum will receive demerits and could eventually lose renting privileges. Bicycles gone for more than 48 hours will be deemed lost, with the last user charged a $200 replacement fee."

I saw a program on FauxNews the other day. The bikes are pretty high tech. There is a hook that must connect to one of the designated bike stations. Until that bike is returned by hooking into the station, time is ticking and the rental fee is going up. The bikes are locked into the station and you can't free the bike until you have an account, which apparently would necessitate a credit card before you could rent a bike.

This is a far cry from the stupib Little Rock program where bikes were just thrown out on the street for the homeless to grab and use to tote their belongings.

Arky

From the NYTimes piece on the D.C. program:

*****While automated bike-sharing programs are new to the United States, the idea of bike-sharing is hardly novel. Milan, Amsterdam and Portland have all had lower-tech free bike-sharing programs in the past, with Amsterdam's dating to the 1960s.

But "studies showed that many bikes would get stolen in a day, or within a few weeks," said Paul DeMaio, a Washington-area bike-sharing consultant. "In Amsterdam, they would often find them in the canals."*****

We shouldn't bash ourselves too badly for our bike thefts. Of course, the ones in Amsterdam wound up in the canals probably because their riders were stoned. :-)

The University of the South ("Sewanee") has done this forever. Many students who bring bikes to campus leave them when they graduate. No registration or anything. Just pick up a bike and leave it when you get to your destination.