St. Pete: Green Bike Initiative

An initiative has begun to put Public Utility Bikes (PUBs) on the streets of St. Pete. This will be a traditional bike-share program, similar to the ones originating in Europe in the 1970s and tried in a few US cities in the 1990s. The plan is to station bright green bikes at “art racks” around the city and free for public use.

They are hoping to stock the racks with people’s donated bicycles.

Current-generation bike-share programs have gone to electronic card-swipe systems to deter theft. The Green Bike folks are using the saturation method:

“We’re anticipating 1,000 bikes to be stolen each month for six months, which is why we’re launching with 8,000. We’re going to deploy 1,500 at a time.” Says co-founder Brent Bruns.

To learn more, check out the Green Bike Initiative web site and a news story that ran last week.

Hopefully, there will be a concurrent effort to raise awareness of safe cycling practices.