Velo-city 2009 Bike-sharing Session

Make your plans now for the Velo-city 2009 conference in Brussels. This is THE international bicycle conference for planners, engineers, advocates, educators, and social marketers which will be held May 12 - 15. There is a special bike-sharing session on May 14 titled "Public bicycles: a temporary hype or a new urban transport means?" (session 5.2) which includes the following presenters:

Chair: Sebastian Bührman - Ruprecht consult,
Esther Anaya - "Spain - Public bikes in Spain, a catalyst for daily cycle use?",
Sara Basterfield and German Dector-Vega - Cyclists' Touring Club/Transport for London - "OBIS project bicycle sharing in Europe. What is possible or not?", and
Paul DeMaio - MetroBike LLC - "Bike-sharing: It's History and Future".

The presentations are bound to be interesting, how could they not - it's bike-sharing!

Register for the day or for the entire conference. It ain't cheap, but it's worth the price. If you happen to find yourself in Brussels for the day, bike on over to Velo-city. I hope to see you there.

image credit: Velo-city 2009

French Revolution

The statistic! blog has a great piece on the number of shared bikes per 1,000 residents of various cities in Europe. While the graphic is not all-inclusive of existing bike-sharing programs, it is fascinating to see.

by Statistico; May 18, 2007

Today thousands of cyclists around the country hit the streets for Bike to Work Day in the United States. In a country dominated by the car, bike transit - as opposed to recreational cycling - is still somewhat of a novelty. Even in large, densely populated cities, you’re more likely to find shared cars than shared bikes. And despite the fact that a car costs 40 times more than a bike, daily fees for renting bikes often exceed those for renting a car.

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image credit: statistic!