Copenhagen's Terrific Rent-a-Bike Program

Will it work? Architecture and design group RAFAA has a new plan to increase the use of bicycles throughout Copenhagen, Denmark. By setting up a number of new bike stations around the city, they would make it easy and accessible for bikes to be rented out by commuters. The biggest issue, however, is storage. AFAA's solution is to station the bikes nearly anywhere such as underground, in walls, even atop lamposts. I'm not exactly sure how this last one would work but it's definitely an interesting idea.

Bikes are made out of lightweight aluminum and would be outfitted with a GPS tracking system to retrieve them if stolen. The system would also include online reservations and a card swiping system to track costs. This would be dependent on distance and time, but the bikes may even be rented out for free for a short period of time. Though Copenhagen is considered to be one of the world's most environmentally friendly cities, with about 37% of all citizens commuting to work by bicycle, RAFAA hopes to increase that number to 50% by 2015.






RAFAA's website via [Inhabitat]