Monday, March 14, 2011

Miami Beach Opens DecoBike!

south-bike.jpg

Here's a welcome addition to the achingly trendy South Beach scene: a new bicycle rental scheme. By day there are lots of tourists going to the beach and cruising the streets looking for fun. But there is also a thriving community of hip locals who love the ocean vibe and relative calm compared to Miami.

Called the Decobike, in appreciation of the fabulous art deco buildings everywhere, now everyone will be able to rent bicycles by the hour to get to the beach.
map bike photo
It's the first system of its kind for Florida. There will be 1,000 bicycles and 100 docking stations. A station will be located every 2 blocks in the busy downtown beach/shopping areas along a 7 mile stretch. Given that this is the most concentrated area of hotels, it would seem that it is a more tourist-oriented amenity than many of the other schemes in larger, more urban, places.

It will be sponsored by private companies, and since this is not just any beach, the likes of Ralph Lauren, the Shore Club, American Apparel and Benetton have all contributed. The private sponsors will pay $4M start-up for all of the infrastructure and the municipality will provide the street space for free. The city of Miami Beach will get a percentage of the revenue from rentals and from the advertising on the baskets.

They are pricing it a little differently than many other cities. There will be a free first half hour and then the next half hour is $4 or the next full hour is $5. A full day rental is $14. This would seem to encourage longer time periods that people will keep the bicycles. Most other schemes focus on a short-term rental and make a longer one prohibitively expensive. Since there is such a big tourist population, there is no pre-registration, you just swipe a credit card at the docking station (with a refundable pre-authorized hold of $250 which is a security deposit).

However residents are given a special deal: they can get unlimited usage by the month for $15.
deco bike photo

The bicycles have been customized specially for the scheme. They are aluminum with hand brakes, adjustable seats and kick stand. They have electronic tracking technology that tells who the rider is and can even calculate the carbon offset. The baskets are roomy and sturdy and there is a bell.

It is expected that the scheme will be up and running next month. So if you are planning a trip to South Beach, forget about the car rental and go the Decobike way.

10 comments:

  1. Looks amazing!!!! /I look forward to your feedback /thanks for this man it was very helpful...

    Wheels in Miami

    ReplyDelete
  2. Whats up are using Wordpress for your blog platform?
    I'm new to the blog world but I'm trying to get started and set up my own.
    Do you need any html coding expertise to make
    your own blog? Any help would be greatly appreciated!



    Here is my webpage housing el segundo california

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up.

    The text in your post seem to be running off the screen
    in Opera. I'm not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with internet browser compatibility but I thought I'd
    post to let you know. The layout look great though!
    Hope you get the problem resolved soon. Many thanks

    My homepage; furnished vacation rentals in las vegas nv

    ReplyDelete
  4. Amazing! This blog looks exactly like my old one!
    It's on a completely different subject but it has pretty much the same layout and design. Excellent choice of colors!

    Also visit my website short term housing in maryland

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey there, I think your website might be having browser compatibility issues.

    When I look at your blog site in Firefox, it looks
    fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping.
    I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, very good blog!


    Here is my weblog: 817 optocoupler smd

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hola! I've been reading your website for some time now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Houston Texas! Just wanted to say keep up the excellent job!

    Look into my page frigidaire dryer repair kit

    ReplyDelete
  7. Link exchange is nothing else except it is just placing
    the other person's blog link on your page at proper place and other person will also do same for you.

    Here is my webpage - appliance repair training san diego

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey there! Do you use Twitter? I'd like to follow you if that would be ok. I'm absolutely enjoying
    your blog and look forward to new posts.

    Here is my blog :: refrigerator service (http://wellnesspyramid04.soup.io/)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I know this if off topic but I'm looking into starting my own weblog and was curious what all is required to get setup? I'm assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny?

    I'm not very web savvy so I'm not 100% sure. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.
    Kudos

    Look at my homepage - emergency appliance repairs **

    ReplyDelete
  10. Using Car Rental 8 you can discover the best car rentals at over 50,000 locations globally.

    ReplyDelete

Transportation for America Coalition