Adding a Downtown bike-sharing program isn’t one of the items on my Top 10 list (#7 coming soon), but it could be. As I learned today in Joel Warner’s blog post at Westword, this summer Denver will launch a bike sharing program similar to what we saw during the DNC last summer, which filled Denver’s Downtown streets with bicycles and, along with the mass of pedestrians, gave us a peek into Downtown Denver’s potential future where the automobile does not reign supreme. Known as B-Cycle, the program will bring 500 or so bikes to 30 bike stations scattered around Downtown. Read Joel’s blog for all the details.
What a great way to promote alternative transportation in Downtown and to give people another option for getting out of their cars! Along with our growing transit system and planned pedestrian and bike lane improvements, we’re slowing turning the ship from its 50-year course of giving the automobile priority in our built environment. More good news for Downtown Denver.
Great program in principal, i was just in Paris and used the bikes with one of my business colleagues who lives there, certainly beat taking a cab.
That being said, I personally would like to see the ability to bring bikes onto the 16th street mall, I understand with the free mall bus that may be a safety issue, however a bike lane or some mechanism to allow bikes on the mall would be great.
Regarding 16th Street, I couldn't agree more. During the RTD strike a few years ago, one of the only upsides of the strike was that we got to see what a terrific conduit 16th Street could be for bicycle traffic.
Beyond 16th street, Downtown itself just needs to be more bike-friendly. Part of the problem is all those one-way streets, which makes it much more difficult to make it through several lanes of traffic for left turns. Also more bike lines would be helpful. Compare riding on Wynkoop and Glenarm (two-way streets with bikelines) with other downtown streets. It's way easier from a biker point of view to get around on those streets.
I wish the bike lanes we do have downtown were considered 2-way lanes. They are certainly wide enough, almost too wide because people drive in them half the time anyway. It would help downtown to be less highway-like in the ultra wide 1-way streets,kinda like the train going the opposite direction has tamed traffic a bit. In A'dam they use this concept very well.
Yes make downtown more bike friendly and make the transition around 16th street mall better. As it goes now, most riders are not smart enough, savy enough, or considerate enough to co-exist with buses and ped's on 16th. And I say this as a person who has commuted by bike for over 15 years.
This is great news and I would think the # of stations is an important key to success… 30 is more than I expected… pleasantly surprised.
I can't agree more with the comments about needing a more friendly environment for bikes downtown. Sharrows (not a bike lane but rather markers indicating that bikes can take over the lane) were recently added to several streets downtown. This is a good start but it can be unnerving to use them since not all drivers understand/appreciate them. We really need to do more including adding more dedicated bike lanes. We can get more bike lanes by remove auto lanes… let's start by shaving off and converting to bikes one lane on all the one ways downtown.
Very cool.
But, the name has got to go. It should be called D-cycle, not B-cycle. Why be SO generic? =]
Fort Collins has had a bike library going on a couple years now… way to step up denver.
Props to Denver for promoting the bicycle!
Also, we should pay attention to Carla Madison's push to have downtown streets closed to cars for a day – this effort will let peds and cyclists be free on the streets for a day and not be subject to the 600-pound gorilla in this transportation discussion.
i really hope that some of these stations at LEAST push into the edge of the residential areas surrounding DT…curtis park, cap hill, highland, jeff park, uptown
thereby encouraging mini-commuting (i know that i dont want to leave my pricey road bike DT for long)
BCP
This is off topic,
But for anyone who is interested, there is an exhibit on the Auraria Science building annex, in the Auraria Library. The exhibit includes new site drawings, and proposals for public art that is to be placed along Speer and other spots around Auraria Campus. So stop by today and check it out, as the library will be closed Sat-Mon.
I think 16th Street absolutely has to be opened up to bicycles. It's the easiest and potentially safest route traversing downtown.
I know it's a pipe dream, but creating a 16th St subway that connects Union Station to Civic Center Station would do the trick. Then 16th St could be a wholly pedestrian street with lanes set aside for bicycling. This would mitigate the overflow of crowds from the sidewalks to the bus lanes we saw during the DNC.
Bikes should not be allowed on the mall. Personally, I'd like to see it 100% pedestrian – no buses, no bikes, no streetcars.
Sounds like Carla Madison has a great idea when proposing to close streets for a day. Possibly inspired by the efforts in Bogota Columbia and other places. Check out Bogata's former mayor speaking in Denver last summer. Click on the "Living Streets Initiative – Public Meeting" Video link:
http://denver.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=18
And here's a look at what can be in Copenhagen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_8dGodhGtI
I agree with David, the mall is no place for bikes. Bikes and pedestrians don't mix well.
Bikes are vehicles. They should travel in vehicle lanes and they should obey vehicle laws.
If we're going to make room for bikes downtown, it should be at the expense of other vehicles, not pedestrians.
Bike riders confuse me. Are they really cars guaranteed their space on the streets, or perhaps, they are wheeled pedestrians who can drive on both streets and sidewalks? Sometimes bikes become both a car and a pedestrian, able to travel on sidewalks when it is convenient and then dash across intersections when they feel like they are now walkers.
A bit of identification will be in order, maybe they could wear different hats to let us know who they are at that very second.
"Are they really cars guaranteed their space on the streets, or perhaps, they are wheeled pedestrians."
No they are bikes. they should have their own set of laws really.
"Are they really cars guaranteed their space on the streets, or perhaps, they are wheeled pedestrians"
no they are bikes. shouldn't they have their own sets of laws and regulations?
I disagree. It's really quite easy to tell when they are vehicles and when they are pedestrians. If they're walking, they're pedestrians, if they're riding, they're vehicles. The existing laws seem pretty clear on that.