Denver B-Cycle is great. I’ve used it many times during the last season. Let me say though, it has huge room for improvement.
A few ideas:
- Make B-Cycle a year round thing. I was disappointed when they closed B-Cycle for winter hibernation. While I can sort of understand the reasoning, its utility is severely diminished when it gets closed for a few months out of the year. Then, I get an email today that they delayed its reopening by two weeks.
- Saturate the city with kiosks, expand beyond Denver. This should go without saying. B-Cycle should have a thousand kiosks in the Denver area with ten thousand bicycles. For now, I’ll settle for some more outside of the core of Denver.
- Kiosks that actually work. I was extremely frustrated last year with some of the touch screens. They didn’t work, became unresponsive, and few times, the station two blocks from my house hadn’t woken up yet. I was unable to retrieve a bike.
- Bells on the bike that the hammers don’t break off of.
- Cheap prices, similar to Dublin’s bike share. Did you know, that for only ten euro (about fourteen U.S. Dollars), you can get a year long subscription? Much better than B-Cycles sixty-five dollar cost.
Really, I’m being very critical of B-Cycle. It is a great system. I would be entirely happy with it if I could get a bike throughout the entire year.
VERY TRUE.
Good points, all.
I have had but one experience with B-Cycle, but it was a good, long one. During, I encountered several problems with the touch screens, and with the bike docks, and with vandalism, and with the system being mysteriously off line.
The program DID expand this past year, but you’re right in that it needs to expand so much more. There are no docks in Stapleton, for example, despite the new MLK bike lanes connecting Stapleton to downtown via Champa and Stout.
There are no stations in Park Hill, a HUGE market, and home to one of Denver’s free bike co-ops.
There is but one station in the Highlands, and it is so close to downtown that it hardly qualifies as Highlands.
So you’re right. B-Cycle HAS been expanding, but it needs to do so beyond the boundaries of downtown Denver.
I’m pumped about them opening in Boulder, though! Perhaps eventually it will be possible to ride between the two cities!