Boston Ready To Share Bikes

The French have rolled with it. Now Bostonians want their turn. Later this week, the city of Boston will begin considering vendors for a massive bike-share program, slated to hit the streets by next spring. Like Paris, Boston is in the market to become a bike-friendly and bike-active city. Cycling promotes passive recreation, reduces vehicle traffic on busy roadways and alleviates already strained public transportation.

But can Boston counter many of the problems plaguing the parisian experiment? And, can Beantown – notorious for its bad drivers - be transformed into a place where you don’t risk your neck to bike to work?

It’s "green commute week" here in New Hampshire, and as part of our "next green thing" series, we’ve asked Nicole Freedman to answer these questions and more. A Stanford graduate and an Olympic cyclist, she is Mayor Menino’s director of bicycle programs. She joins us to explain why the city is ready for a full-blown bike share program.

Boston Globe: Is Boston Ready For a Revolution?

We also listen to "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, played on bicycle parts. Those are spokes and derailleur cables being plucked, brakes squeaking and chains being pulled. Here's the video:

Making Boston’s narrow streets safe for bicyclists might seem like a monumental task. Across the country, hundreds of bicyclists die on U.S. roads, most of them in collisions with cars.

These fatalities can send shock waves through the bicycle community, but family and friends are coming together to commemorate their loved ones, with something called "ghost bikes." These bikes are painted white and placed at the site of the crash, standing as permanent reminders of the life that was lost.

But not everyone likes seeing these memorials in their neighborhoods, day after day. From Portland, Oregon – a city known for its thriving bike culture - producers Mark Saldana and Hana Sun have the story. Listen to the story at the Public Radio Exchange.

(Photo of Boston bicyclists by Jenene; photo of ghost bikes by velo_city via Flickr/Creative Commons)