New York City has done a good job in recent years to
encourage cycling instead of driving in the city. The Earth Policy Institute released a study showing that car ownership dropped by 4,000,000 vehicles in 2009; the Upper West Side of New York City will be converting 240 parking meters into bicycle racks. During 2009, 14 million cars were scrapped while only 10 million new ones were purchased. The U.S. fleet of cars declined by 2 percent from 250 million to 246 million within the year. This marks the first time since WWII that the number of cars scrapped was greater than those purchased. Bike lanes and paths have been created and new policies have been instituted to protect cyclists and pedestrians, but the city may be planning the biggest encouragement yet: a huge bike-sharing program. The proposed program, created by Mayor Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, would start with 10,500 bikes availabe for rent and then quickly spread to 49,000 bikes, similar in scale to the successful
Paris Vélib’ program. With ECOGEEK we'll be excitedly awaiting more news.
Read more in EcoGeek.
