Free Republic

Back in March, I posted “The Bike-Share Oversupply in China: Huge Piles of Abandoned and Broken Bicycles,” showing just some of the millions of bicycles that had been rapidly built and dumped into Chinese cities by bike-share companies looking to get in on the next big thing, only to crash hard. In the months since, more of those bike-share startups have gone bankrupt or consolidated, and the bicycle graveyards remain. Municipal governments are still wrangling with the fallout, confiscating derelict or illegally parked bikes, crafting new laws, and working out what to do with millions of abandoned bicycles. In a...

More than 40 bicycles belonging to Baltimore's Recreation and Parks department for a bike-share program were stolen this week, and the activity has been suspended indefinitely, city officials said. The bikes, which included children's bikes and adult-size blue beach cruisers, were stolen on Monday during the city's Ride Around the Reservoir program in Druid Hill Park. Recreation and Parks spokeswoman Gwendolyn Chambers said staff had set up the bikes to lend out when a large group of youths began stealing them. One staffer was kicked by a youth, though the injury was not serious, Chambers said. "We don't want our...

A new bike-share program in New York looks like a promising way to fix some of the city's biggest problems, like traffic congestion, air pollution, and obesity. Or rather, let us rephrase: It will help to relieve issues of obesity, but only for the portion of the population weighing less than 260 pounds. “Everyone who signs up for the program has to agree to a contract, which states users ‘must not exceed maximum weight limit (260 pounds)’ because the bikes can’t hold that much heft,” explains the New York Post. But citizens aren’t buying it. Jhoskaira Ferman, a 20-year-old student...