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The Road to a Better World is Jammed with Red Bikes

By Nell Edgington

This past Memorial Day weekend I headed to Denver to have fun and explore the city. The trip was made infinitely better because of 500 red bikes. Denver is the first city in the country to have a bike sharing program, called B-cycle, and it is phenomenal. It results in a cleaner city and healthier citizens. I wrote a post about the whole experience and what it’s doing for Denver, and could do, for the whole country, at the Change.org blog. Here’s an excerpt:

There is something pretty amazing going on in Denver, and it might just change the world. B-cycle, a nonprofit that provides rental bikes around the city, has found a cheap, fun way to make Denver a cleaner city and its inhabitants and visitors healthier. I spent last weekend playing tourist in Denver and the experience was made so much better, and cleaner, because of the rows of red B-cycle rental bikes around the city. Denver is demonstrating that change really is possible, especially when it’s easy and fun.

Denver is the first U.S. city to do what European, Canadian, Chinese and Mexican cities have already done–share bikes. Here’s how it works. You buy a short or long-term “membership” via credit card online starting at $5. Then grab one of the 500 bikes waiting for you at the 50 kiosks around the city (found through a pretty cool iPhone app) and ride. When you’re done, return it to any of the kiosks, and your card will be charged for the amount of time you rode. The first 30 minutes are free, and it goes up in increments of around $1-2 for each 30 minutes after that…

You can read the whole post here.

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About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. In addition to leading Social Velocity’s efforts to accelerate social innovation, she is a regular contributor to Change.org’s Social Entrepreneurship blog and speaks at social innovation gatherings.

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 Innovators, Nonprofits, scale

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1 Comment to The Road to a Better World is Jammed with Red Bikes

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by changefeed, Stir-e. Stir-e said: The Road to a Better World is Jammed with Red Bikes: This past Memorial Day weekend I headed to Denver to have fun… http://bit.ly/beITwB [...]

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