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White Bikes |
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Written by Zach Magoon
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Wednesday, 23 April 2008 |
So it's Spring here in Portland, Maine. Where the hell are all the bikers? I've seen a few more in the morning, but not a total flux of morning commuters. I had such high hopes this year to see more people out there. I mean $3.58 for gas? Holy chainsuck. Come on folks, what will it take?
I hope all it takes is a the White Bike program I'm helping start at my work. The concept is not new. Folks in Europe have been doing it successfully for a long time. The concept is to provide free public bikes that anyone can use and leave for the next person. Seems simple. But the bikes get stolen, abused, vandalized, wheeled into oncoming traffic never to be seen again. Well, we hope to curtail that to a certain extent so that our program lasts longer than a day by putting locks on the bikes. The combination to the locks can only be found on the website we're creating--so hopefully bikes might last a few more days for folks who want to use them for transport.
So here's the skinny--we're going to start with 10-12 bikes and paint them white. These things are no speed racers, they're what one might call "basic transportation." We're also going to affix some signage to them with some bike-related information as well as the url so folks can get the combination. We're taking bets in the office as to how long they will last, but really our main goal is to begin a dialogue about alternative transportation. Our PR team is hitting up local media and we've already chatted with people at City Hall who are behind us, so now we just need to get the damn bikes.
Bikeman has a bunch that we have to go pick up for cheap, so that's cool. I may have one kicking around if I can lift it out of my basement. And folks at work have some. We'll just need to get them into running order, paint em, slap on the signage and finish the website. It's gonna be some work, but I think it's worth it. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Better yet, if you live in Portland, give one of these beasts a ride. We should be launching the program mid- May, just in time for my birthday-awwwww.
Ride safely,
Zm
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