The People’s Pedal - a community bike program that works
by Steve ~ March 12th, 2008. Filed under: From the Web.
Community bicycle programs are nothing new. We had one in Winnipeg many years ago that ran for a single summer. Like many of this type of program, the bikes were available to anybody who wanted them, left at stations downtown. As with many such programs, theft and vandalism decimated the available bikes. In Cambridge, UK, in 1993, one program opened with 300 available bikes. By the end of the first day, every bike was stolen, and the program was terminated.
Bike theft would seem to be the plague of such programs. One of the recent comments on Bike of Doom was from a fellow who participated in a bike sharing program in Edmonton called The People’s Pedal. This program has taken the approach of requiring membership, which strikes me as eminently practical. Bikes are kept locked in “hubs” throughout the city. At each hub a lockbox contains keys for the individual bikes. When cyclists join the program, they are given the combination or key to the lockbox, giving them access to the bikes.
Does this system work? It must, since the program is going into what appears to be its second year of operations with a brand new newsletter just released, and the addition of 7 new stations this spring, bringing their total to 15 stations where bikes are available.
One of the keys to making a system like this work is having bikes available 24/7, which requires that the people who ride the bikes put them back in a hub when they’re done. That means that taking a bike home and returning it the next day is not really an option; wouldn’t be fair to the other members. The People’s Pedal asks that riders keep bikes no longer than 4 hours, a reasonable amount of time. But probably not the best system for bicycle commuters.
Still, I like the idea. Taking a lunch-time ride with a co-worker who doesn’t have a bike would be possible… though perhaps not completely within the rules.
Membership in The People’s Pedal is $25 annually, or four hours of volunteer time. Volunteers are required to promote the organization, to help build and refurbish bikes, and to monitor the Hubs and make repairs to bikes as required. Here’s the great part: Hub monitors are given a toolbox and training in basic bike maintenance.
Sounds like a great way to participate, and to learn bike maintenance.
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March 13th, 2008 at 8:26 am
It is working but they do (or did, I’m not involved anymore) have problems with vandalism and theft. There’s never been a bike stolen from a rack but some members were using them as disposable bikes, riding and abandoning them wherever they felt like it. I suspect that the worst problems came from members giving out the code to friends who felt no obligations to use the system responsibly. There also isn’t any way to force members to bring the bikes back within the time limit, the stations are not staffed. I was the only paid staff, doing maintenance and supervising the building sessions. In the end the careless way the bikes were being treated wore me down. Fortunately when I went to quit the president was relieved because the grant money they were paying me was running out. :)
The way it’s being sustained is by simply throwing more bikes out as needed. The bikes are donations both from private individuals and from the Edmonton Bike Commuters (edmontonbikes.ca) They take old roadbikes and cheap mountain bikes such as the Bike of Doom (Oh, how well I know all the problems with the care and feeding the Supercycle and it’s cousins.) and convert them to single speed and flat bars, spray ‘em red give ‘em a number and funny name and out they go. Well, after a thorough safety check of course.
There have been times when no bikes have been available because we couldn’t keep up with the losses but the long Edmonton winters mean plenty of time to catch up on bike building so it carries on despite that. The bike building sessions are a lot of fun and you can learn a great deal about bike maintenance at them. The crew running it are passionate about cycling as everyday transportation and their enthusiasm rubs off, even on a crusty old curmudgeon like me. They’d love to have anyone in Edmonton who’s interested get involved.
March 13th, 2008 at 9:09 am
That’s interesting. So it’s a war of attrition… with no end in sight? That’s sad in a way, but I’m glad to hear it’s still alive and still going.
The program they had in Winnipeg had no hubs or stations as I remember. Bikes were available downtown and people were told to leave ‘em where they wanted. Or perhaps I missed the part where you were supposed to leave them somewhere in particular. A year later, the program was dead. People were selling the bikes in the want ads, even through the were all painted white.
A stake of $25 would weed out worst of the worst, I expect. Anything higher than that might reduce the popularity of the program. I’m interested to see how the PeoplesPedal program evolves… what changes they make to keep it viable. Being agile and responsive is probably key to survival in that game.