Italophile

For the past few weeks I’d been noticing a lot of strange bike-sharing stations with their posts covered in trash bags and sans bikes…

I was intrigued because my other favorite capital city (DC, natch) is also starting a bike sharing program. So I did a little investigating and it turns out that back in November of 2007 the city decided to initiate a bike sharing program, based on the popular Paris model. The theoretical start date was January 15. Lo and behold, exactly five months later, I saw my first functioning bike station! Yeah, the fact that it took so much longer than expected is a little disappointing but, let’s remember, we’re still talking about setting up a pretty full-scale bike sharing program (about 200 bikes and 19 stations) in less than a year, which I find pretty impressive (for Rome). They’ve even got a spiffy website, complete with an interactive map that lets you check how many bikes are at each station. Anyway, here are the bikes, in all their shiny red glory!

Conventional wisdom is that this is that bike sharing programs are always a good thing (any chance I get to link to the Voice…), but I’m not entirely sure it’ll work in Rome. The city is notoriously hilly and I’d imagine the sampietrini, whatever their historic and aesthetic values may be, probably aren’t conducive to smooth bike riding. Plus, the thought of navigating through throngs of tourists and competing with crazy Roman drivers for room on the road is kind of terrifying. I tend to think there are easier and still environmentally friendly ways of getting around the city (see the picture at the top). I think ATAC does a remarkably good job with the buses and Rome is also extremely walkable – especially the Centro Storico where all of the bike stations are located.

Qualms aside, I’m still pretty impressed. Hopefully some adventurous souls will give it a try (better this than the segway tours, that’s for sure).