Comments on King County Rolls Out Green Bike Program

Wow. The city is buying bicycles for people with good jobs at high-paying companies. Fascinating.

Ah yes, the rainy season seems to have started early this year. I wonder if we will see snow in September this year? Snowboarding at Steven's Pass on Election Day maybe?

#1 - well, at least this is a start.

I hope the program turns out to be hugely successful and they make much bigger improvements and changes next year!

Green Bike is a clever name for the program - no doubt an allusion go the Rayon Vert which flashes on rare occasions for but a second at sundown and then is gone.

Wow.

Cost for 200 bikes = ....

Cost to jack up Metro bus fares 50 cents citywide = ....

You're still being taken to the cleaners.

Why don't the companies pay for the bikes instead and affix their corporate logos to them?

Fnarf,

I love ya' man, but the city is not involved, it's the county. Also, as far as I can tell, REI is donating the bikes.

how many people like riding bikes in the rain?

City, county, same difference. Donations or not, same difference. They're still allocating resources to relatively well-off people, which is weird.

Given the list of companies they rattled off, I'm pretty sure just about any of them could afford a bike to commute with if they chose to. The bikes they're giving away are probably worth roughly $300. (Compare that to roughly $8000 per year the average American spends on cars, car payments, insurance, gas, etc). A free bike isn't what's stopping them. Hills, rain, and lack of safe bike routes is what's stopping them.

The company commitment to showers and bike parking is certainly a help. But what we need is better and safer bike routes, not fee bikes for the well-employed.

Fnarf for the win. Of course, if those same companies, like say Microsoft, anted up for putting light rail on SR-520, this would all be a moot point.

Will in Seattle: Novara is REI's house brand, so they have slapped their label on the bike.

Reverse Polarity: The Novara Transfer is a $500 bike. Wholesale that's probably $250 plus the labor to assemble it.

Nice idea. My workplace has secure bike parking and a shower, and it's wonderful.

But REI will be knocking the full $500 off their taxes.

And the county presumably has an administrative staff of thirty to monitor.