Newsom rode a rental bike as we chatted during Bike to Work Day a few years ago.
By Steven T. Jones
I was already cranking up my criticism of Mayor Gavin Newsom in this post when he announced his anemic bike-sharing proposal – 50 bikes for San Francisco versus the 20,000 in Paris, from where he made the announcement – so I wondered if perhaps I was being a little hard on the proposal. You know, poisoned by my own venom.
It seemed pretty ridiculous to spend $1 million to start a program that nobody could rely on considering there would be less than 10 bikes at each of the five locations that they’re proposing. So I listened to the chatter on the CarFree list (people who promote biking and would support a legitimate bike-sharing program), checked sites such as SF Streetsblog, and did some interviews.
And so now I can say, with great confidence, that this is indeed a really dumb and self-serving idea that has everything to do with Newsom being able to claim he started something sexy like bike sharing and nothing to do with actually promoting bicycling in San Francisco.
Hell, Blazing Saddles (the rental company that lends Newsom a ride for Bike to Work Day, the one day a year that he pedals) rents 200-700 bicycles per day in San Francisco depending on the season and weather, according to someone I spoke with there. So how exactly is the Clear Channel-administered 50 bikes going to make any difference?
MTA spokesperson Judson True did defend the proposal when I called him, telling me the 50 bikes was, “based on Clear Channel’s experience in other cities getting people used to the idea.” Clear Channel runs the only other one in the U.S., Washington DC’s shitty little 150-bike program, unlike the thousands of bikes in real programs in cities around the world. True also said the high cost is based partly on renting private property because the bike injunction, which will be lifted later this year, prohibits bike improvements on public property.
Which, to me, sounds like even more proof that Newsom decided to roll this out now because it fits into his larger political plans, beating other U.S. cities like New York that are doing actual planning to roll out real bike sharing programs. And so it goes with Mayor Press Release.
P.S. See you all at Critical Mass tomorrow.