Moscow, Russia have piloted their own bike share program after intense lobbying by local bicycle advocates.
300 red bikes (Hear that, Dan Maes?) at 30 docking stations around central Moscow are provided by Homeport Bikesharing Solutions of Prague in the Czech Republic, which also operates the bike share program. This “СитиБайк” (phonetically “City Bike”) program is sponsored by the Bank of Moscow. After this initial rollout which began at the end of May, organizers hope to expand Moscow’s bike share to 1,000 bikes at 100 stations spread across a large part of Moscow.
Like other bike share systems, users purchase a membership (anywhere from a day, which costs the equivalent of US$3, to a “season” for US$30. The first 30 minute are included in your membership fee, with increasing prices from US$1 for the first hour beyond that. Users sign up through VeloBike.RU and use the website or a mobile app to find bike and open kiosk availability.
Photos courtesy Homeport Bikesharing.
The New Yorker Magazine has an article describing how bike share came to be in the Russian capital.
Hey Richard, we were just in Moscow and saw these!
They’re basically Boris Bike aren’t they?