Socialized Bike Rentals

When I was at Carleton, students created "Yellow Bikes" based on ideas from Amsterdam, Portland, OR, and other cities where they refurbished bikes and put them out for general use, cost-free.

As happened elsewhere, the Carleton bikes were in varying degrees of functionality and were frequently death traps waiting to happen. They were too small, the brakes didn't work, the seat was sharp, etc.

Paris seems to have come up with a novel public/private partnership to get around the problem but still provide bikes to its residents. They'll put 20,000 bikes on the street by the end of the year, which can be checked out from one of 1,450 locations. If you check one out, it'll cost you nothing for the first half hour, and each half hour after that it gets more expensive.

Their idea is not only to get people out of cars and taxis, but also some studies have shown that the quickest way around Paris is by bicycle.

It'll be interesting to see how well the whole thing works out. I don't know how effective it would be for Tacoma. Too many hills downtown? Maybe with a gondola going up 11th and 15th ...