Originally posted by swekarl
I used this service once: I checked out a standard 3 gear bike that I could keep for 2 or 3 days. Like you say, it didn’t make sense.
But like Little Big Man, I liked the heart of these folks at first. So cute, and no-one would use the three bikes that waited outside the information office of my part of Stockholm. But then I got irritated as I realized that this is what little efforts are made to encourage people to use the bike as city communication. Such an alibi.
I don't know, I think it's good for people to experiment with things like that. Looking back on it, you can say that it probably didn't do much to help get people on bikes, but now you know for sure that it doesn't work. There's nothing wrong with trying a program like that as long as you are willing to give it up if it becomes obvious that it is a failure. Which means that you need to have guidelines that detail what it means for the program to be successful, and make sure that this matches the ultimate goals of the program.
andy