Spotted in DC: Rent-A-Bike
posted by Noah at 8:46 AM
I'm always delighted to encounter things that encourage bicycling in cities, so I had to take a couple of shots of this lovely row of old school bicycles for rent in front of the National Portrait Gallery/American Art Museum.
A quick review of the Smart Bike DC website paints an interesting picture. The self service bike rental program, which has been successful in Europe, is a product of a partnership between Clear Channel Outdoor and the DC Department of Transportation. Clear Channel is the much reviled media giant that has put a stranglehold on American radio, and their Outdoor division controls a great deal of the nightmarish public advertising we have to wade through daily. Happily, there's no advertising on the bikes or the station right now, though who knows how long that will last.
Anyone in the DC area know the story behind the partnership?
And do you think is it better to have bikes with potential ads, or no bikes at all?
Labels: bicycles, DC, spotted, transportation, urban
3 Comments:
No ADS, I'm for NO ADS. Having just returned from Paris with the ubiquitous Velib' with no ads on them, I say NO ADS. It's really great to see this in DC and I hope it's very successful. Could it spread? Hopefully.
Hey there, I wrote up a quick review of the Smart Bike system on my blog last year. Briefly, its not about advertisements on bicycles, but rather Clear Channel was given exclusive rights to advertise in all of the bus shelters in Washignton, DC. Its roughly the same model that Paris used for their Vˆ©lib bicycle sharing system, where JC Decaux received similar advertising rights and beat out Clear Channel.
Thanks Nikolas, I had a feeling that might be the case.
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