Brisbane looks set to become the first Australian capital city to join several European centres in introducing a public bike hire scheme, with the city’s council launching a call for proposals for the project at the weekend. Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said the scheme would be similar to the Paris and Barcelona models.
There’ll be bike (stations) every 300m in the inner parts of Brisbane and in terms of the price structure, it could be similar to Paris, where the first half-hour is free’. Mr Newman said the initial stage of the project would have 2000 bikes at 150 stations across innercity Brisbane, from Newstead in the inner-north to the University of Queensland at St Lucia in the city’s southwest.”
[Thanks to Stephen Ingrouille]
I would love to see this here too, but I have a question that I’ve never received a good answer to. What do we do about our helmet laws? Do we get rid of them? Do we have helmets with the bikes and some sort of disposable liner? No idea what would work, can I hear some ideas.
Australia has helmet laws, too. I wonder what Brisbane will do?
Is there really a helmet law? I notice (or rather my 3-year-old does) that most adults don’t seem to be wearing helmets when biking in our neighbourhood. Someone told me the helmet law is for children only.
Province of British Columbia Motor Vehicle Act, Section 184
City of Vancouver Street and Traffic By-Law No. 2849, Section 60D
http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/transport/cycling/regulations.htm
They’ll probably have some disclaimer that you have to say yes, you know about the law and yes, you have a helmet with you, or something like that. I’d imagine trying to have helmets with bikes and/or helmet liners would be problematic. Do you think people will be willing to carry helmets around with them?