I'm as much for bikes in Boston as anyone, but the rent-a-bike model isn't everything the Globe cracks it up to be (and Tommy doesn't mention that this trip was a press junket, as Google News makes obvious.) It lines the pocket of a monopolistic private entity, is a back-door tax on bicyclists, and does absolutely nothing to enhance Boston's bike infrastructure. Publicly owned space that could be used for public lockups will go to the rental program; local bike shops could be hurt as people eschew private ownership; landlords could be harder to convince to make secure storage space available. What about those of us who don't want to ride a hulking heavy bike, spend 15 minutes walking to the 'nearest' bike rental cage for a 15 minute bike ride, pay by the hour, worry about whether a bike will be available/whether we can return it in time, or give someone a $200 security deposit? What about all the fuel wasted redistributing bikes? Why are Boston leaders wasting time with solutions in search of a problem, instead of giving us bike lanes, road signs, hoops around meters, and public bike racks? Meanwhile in London, they're banning locks on rental bikes- but yet renters are responsible for thefts. It's not hard to imagine such idiocy here.

Mr. Matlack should have asked Parisians how to paint a line on pavement for less than $30,000 per mile, so we can have more than 3.2 miles of bike lanes. New York city manages to install 60 miles of bike lanes a year and installed 800 bike racks in one year. Chicago has hundreds of miles of paths and 10,000 bike racks (yes, you read that right: 10,000 bike racks.) All of that was accomplished without idiotic rental programs. In Boston, it's not even clear if the 250 bike lockups that were promised in 2007 have been fully installed; in JP, they seem to only exist in front of City Feed.