District of Columbia launches bike-sharing program.(News & Numbers)(Brief article)

The Washington, D.C. District Department of Transportation plans to introduce a bike-sharing program in late spring. SmartBike DC--the first self-service public bicycle rental program in the United States--will allow subscribers to rent bicycles from 10 downtown locations. The public-private venture will be provided in partnership with an international outdoor advertising company as part of the district's advertising contract for bus shelters.

Users will register online and pay $40 a year for a membership card that will allow them to rent bikes 24 hours a day. The bicycles will be parked at modular stations equipped with parking slots that use a proprietary locking system. A rental kiosk at each station processes each rental and provides users with information. Only members can release bicycles from the kiosks, and the system tracks each rental, allowing SmartBike to bill the user for a replacement if a bike is lost or damaged. Each kiosk transmits information about condition of that location to the program operations center.

Users can return SmartBikes to any of the locations, and a service team redistributes the bicycles to ensure availability of bikes and parking slots. The program will start out with 120 bicycles. Helmets will not be provided, although the department will encourage users to wear their own.

Similar bike-sharing systems have succeeded in European cities for about 10 years, and more low-tech versions have existed for decades. The SmartBike system is currently used in Barcelona and Oslo, and it is also being considered by several other cities in the U.S.

For more information, see www.ddot. dc.gov/bike or http://smartbikedc.com/program_information.asp.

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