I don't want you to think I'm a Debbie Downer here, but Boston's bike-sharing plan, discussed in a puff-piece in today's Globe, is pure pipe dream.  

A big part of the problem, of course, is Menino.  He's supposedly caught the biking bug, and yet, as the article points out, while New York has added 200 miles of bike paths in the past three years, Boston barely eeked out five last year and is planning another whopping five for this year.  World class, Tommy.  Let us know when you get the training wheels off.

The glacial pace of change hasn't fazed perky Bike Czar Nicole Freedman, though, who has biked to the moon (but not back again, obviously):  “Bike share will transform Boston into a world-class biking city,’’ she says. “All I see is this incredible upside.’’

I guess it should be no surprise, then, that the picture she paints of a bike share program in Boston is, at times, frankly bizarre.  The vision of  "tens of thousands of people saddling up in Boston daily" is downright apocalyptic.  Never fear: it won't happen, because, well, it just won't. Trust me.

The bike sharing program itself still sounds sketchy.

The city envisions making available between 1,000 and 3,000 bikes at stations 300 or 400 yards apart, located at subway and bus stops, main squares, tourist sites, and across city neighborhoods.

Riders would probably have the option of subscribing to the program for an annual fee, which would allow for discounts, or day passes. BikeNow, one of three companies the city is considering to run the program, would charge $2.50 for a day pass or $40 for an annual subscription. Each would allow cyclists unlimited rides of less than 30 minutes, but longer rides would be charged at an hourly rate.

Bike stations 300 or 400 yards apart?  Unlimited rides of less than 30 minutes? I guess it makes sense when you think how long it takes to ride 300 yards.

I would say the city should confine its ambitions to tourist areas for the time being, but most of those are not navigable by bike.  The idea of plowing ahead with a full-blown bike-sharing program when the infrastructure can't handle cyclists period, much less more cyclists, is counterproductive.  (If you think a traffic jam in your car is bad, you have obviously never experienced bicycle rush hour in Boston.)  

The idea seems to be that more cyclists on the road will in and of itself make Boston safer for cycling.  “As people see more cyclists in the streets of our city they’ll be more aware of the issues of safety,’’ Menino has said.  If nothing else, that's a cost-effective way to approach the issue.  Don't bother fixing the roads, just get more bikes on 'em.  Safety will follow. 

I'll have whatever he's smoking.

Hate to say it, but this has all the markings of one of those could've-been public works projects that people will point to in the future as proof that it can't work here.  And that's too bad.  The plan's being blown all out of proportion mainly so that Menino can compare Boston to Paris, Montreal, and London — places where there's some actual commitment to alternative transportation.  But when the plan fails we'll be back to comparing Boston to, um, Boston.

(More of my thoughts on Boston's Biking Babylon here and here.)