Metroradruhr: Germany's Ruhr Valley Inter-City Bike Sharing
WorldChanging Team, 29 Jul 10
by Russell Meddin
Metroradruhr bike racks (via Bike-Sharing Blog)
This summer brings a new regional bike-sharing system, Metroradruhr, to ten industrial Ruhr valley cities. Started on June 18th in Dortmund, Germany the system has now reached five of the cities. Bikes are now, or soon will be, available in Bochum, Bottrop, Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Hamm, Herne, Mülheim an der Ruhr and Oberhausen. This is not just a series of suburban satellite additions to a larger city system, but a single system connecting nearby cities together. The most similar operation is Italy's Bicincittà, but the cities and stations of Metroradruhr are close enough together to allow bikes to move between cities.
The nine cities served by a single bike-sharing system in Germany's Ruhr Valley (via Bike-Sharing Blog)
Metroradruhr operates using the neXt bike telephone rental system. As with neXt bike, Metroradruhr has the convenience of reserving bikes for large groups in advance. Registration is required to use the system, but there are no subscriptions. The price is €1 per hour ($1.30 US) for any bike or according to which bike is chosen, starting from €5 per 24 hours ($6.50 US).
Metroradruhr bicyclists (via Bike-Sharing Blog)
Linking an area together with a single bike-sharing system has incredible convenience for the users and strengthens a region's public transit options.
As we all know, Bike-sharing in Germany is really Rad-verleihsystem!
This post originally appeared on The Bike-Sharing Blog and on the Streetsblog Network. You can reach the author, Russell Meddin, via email and at bikesharephiladelphia.org.
Hmm! No helmets I see.
(compulsory helmets is proving to be a sore point for the Melbourne program)
Posted by: Tony Fisk on 29 Jul 10
Yes, I agree that there is a big future for no-helmet biking. Not everyone wants to be a road warrier. Australia's helmet rules are restricting bike riding.
Posted by: Gillian on 29 Jul 10
They have just started a bike share scheme here in melbourne, australia but refuse to relax the helmet law so only 70 bikes were used in the first 2 weeks!
Posted by: Tom on 31 Jul 10
Yeah... No helmets.. But it's okay especially to those who like bike and also like to use a transpo.
Posted by: Seraphine Rose Parker on 31 Jul 10
In Amsterdam a similar system is used since years. Sure the netherlands are the country of bikes but still they invented this kind of bike sharing. It is a great things though and saves alot of CO2. Hope more large cities will follow the lead and start projects like this.
Btw no one ever wears a bike helmet in holland.
Alex from Zahnaufhellung Info
Posted by: Alex on 31 Jul 10
Ironically, the week that report about the low uptake of Melbourne bikeshare was released was the one when I actually saw people using it!
I might even try it out tonight (going to the BZE discussion group) meeting.
Posted by: Tony Fisk on 1 Aug 10
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