Society

Workers can borrow bike and cut commute in half

By Zhao Ruixue and Cui Xiaoqing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-16 07:54

YANTAI, Shandong - Until August 10, Li Bingran's typical walk to and from work took half an hour. But now Li, 26, needs only about 15 minutes to get to the office, because she now rides a public-use bicycle from a bike station in the residential area where she lives.

The bicycles are available through the bicycle-sharing program initiated on August 10 in Yantai, East China's Shandong province.

"It is so convenient for me to take a bicycle for free at the station, which is just a few meters from where I live," Li told China Daily. "It halves my commute time."

Yantai residents can use a cash deposit card registered with their ID card to release a bike from a locked terminal for an hour's free use. If someone wants to ride it for more than an hour for free, he may return the bike first and then retrieve it again at any bike station.

Tourists can get the cards after leaving a deposit at the offices of several stations.

Organized by the China Foundation for Human Rights Development and owned by the city government, the bicycle-sharing program will eventually have 300 stations with 15,000 bikes available for use.

The day after the program began, 50 stations and 3,000 bicycles had become available in the city.

The construction of the stations will be finished next month, according to Fan Jianqing, who is in charge of the bicycle program.

The number of bicycles and stations will fit the current needs of Yantai, which currently has a population of about 1.68 million in its urban area.

The free bicycle-sharing system will help reduce carbon emissions, decrease traffic and encourage residents to get more exercise, Fan said.

Zhao Xiaoyu, 27, a white-collar worker, said: "I live about three kilometers from my office. I prefer taking a bike than driving a car over the three kilometers, especially in spring and autumn, since a bike is environmentally friendly."

Yu Yihong, 65, said the bicycles are a beautiful scene in Yantai.

"The bikes are colorful. The program will help improve the environment in Yantai since bikes bring no pollution."

Bicycles in Yantai are painted in red, yellow and green. Some are equipped with baby seats. In the hilly areas, mountain bicycles are available, too.

Bicycle-sharing programs operate in several cities in China. Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, for example, has 50,000 free bicycles in use, surpassing Paris' Velib program, which offers more than 20,000 bikes. Bicycle stations can be found every 100 meters in Hangzhou.

Jinan, capital of Shandong province, carried out a bicycle-sharing program in early 2008, but the program failed within a year due to its small scale and insufficient funding, the Economic Herald reported.

Whether or not a bicycle-sharing program survives largely depends on raising enough money, Fan said.

Yantai government has employed a team of workers for their program. Some of these workers are in charge of raising money for the program by selling advertisements posted at stations and on bicycles. These workers are paid according to their business performance.

Only time will tell whether the program can survive in Yantai, Fan said.