I found this article in today's Times about the Parisian experience of bike-sharing somehow prescient.  Mayor Menino does seem intent on bringing a bike-sharing program to Boston, although we'll see if he can sustain his enthusiasm post-election (assuming he's still in office). If it does become a reality, if the actual experience of at least one city it's modeled after is any guide, it may not be quite as utopic as many armchair urbanists anticipate.

According to the article:

At least 8,000 bikes have been stolen and 8,000 damaged so badlythat they had to be replaced — nearly 80 percent of the initial stock.

JCDecaux [the outdoor-advertising company that is a major financer and organizer of the project] must repair some 1,500 bicycles a day. The company maintains 10 repair shops and a workshop on a boat that moves up and down the Seine. ...

It is commonplace now to see the bikes at docking stations in Paris withflat tires, punctured wheels or missing baskets. Some Vélib’s have beenfound hanging from lampposts, dumped in the Seine, used on the streetsof Bucharest or resting in shipping containers on their way to NorthAfrica. Some are simply appropriated and repainted.

Finding a decent one is now something of an urban treasure hunt.

Bike-sharing may prove incredibly costly to the city of Boston as well.  JCDecaux invested about $140 million to set up the system.  But as expensive as Velib is, Paris not only doesn't pay for its bike-share program, JCDecaux turns over an annual $5.5 million in user fees to the city.

Paris' program is made possible by advertising — specifically, the city's swapping ad space for bikes. That seems to be the only model that has a chance of succeeding. As Martina Schmidt, director of Clear Channel Outdoor Smartbike Programs, told Tom Matlack: "If Boston increased the fees to that extent that it would cover everycost and also would allow for some return on the investment for us,nobody would be able to afford it." (Kinda sounds like she's talking about the MBTA, doesn't it?)

On a trip to Paris last April to investigate their bike-share system, Matlack asked the director of the program there if he had any advice for Boston:

"The first key is the density ofthe network," he says. "It must cover the whole city, not just the citycenter, with a station every 250 meters. The second key is you musthave good prices — very, very cheap. The third key is the promotion ofthe service — the city must be very politically involved and committedto its success. The fourth key is the quality of the bicycles and thestation equipment. They will be used 10 times a day by differentcustomers: novice, expert, fat, very slim, tall, and short. Last butperhaps most important is the quality of service and repair."

I think if we were to honestly judge the current leadership on following through to ensure the success of this kind of program, especially in a time when budgets are tight, the outlook's pretty grim.  Especially on issues like of upkeep and repair and a commitment to keeping prices down. 

And as for political will, Scott Griffith, CEO of Zipcar, told Matlack: "If Menino says he wants 5,000 bikes on the streets, it has a highlikelihood of happening. The problem is, Mayor Menino doesn't have ahistory of doing that."  Politically, the big question is: is there adequate potential for kickbacks to motivate local authorities to see bike-sharing succeed in Boston?

Personally, I would love to have a bike-share in the neighborhoods where I work and play.  There are days I don't want to commute all the way in by bike, but once in the city would love to be able to hop on a bike to get from my job in the South End to my garden in the Fenway, do some shopping, meet a friend in JP, and the like.  There are gaps in the public transit system that bikes could very nicely fill.

But the infrastructure has to be in place, the system has to be maintained, and the cost to the commuter has to be kept down.  These are three areas that the city scores particularly low in in all other modes of transit.  There is absolutely no reason to realistically expect anything different from a Boston bike share.

As things stand, anyone who has biked in Boston with any regularity knows that more bicycles — God forbid manned by out-of-towners — would not necessarily make Boston a better place for bikes, any more than adding 50,00 cars to a morning commute would make Boston better for drivers.

But OK, bring it on.