New Brushless Bike Wash for DC

As meticulously as a fine French hand laundry, with utmost delicacy, the new automated “Velib” Brushless Bike Wash cleans road grunge and dead bugs off your bike. Frankly, though, the “hot wax” option is of questionable value.

Okay, it’s really an automated bicycle rental kiosk and they have them all over Paris, renting out 15,000 bikes at 1,000 kiosks like Zip Cars so people don’t have to buy and store their own wheels. You slide your credit card through the slot, take out a bike to ride and rack it at a kiosk near your destination.

These are coming to Washington but there will only be four kiosks and 100 bikes in the initial system, well short of what it will take for proof of concept: the stated aim is dependable everyday transportation. Worse, the first four kiosks will be in areas with high numbers of tourists, college students and suburban teen day-trippers, so don’t expect to see bikes in the rack when you want them.

Perhaps our bike-riding Mayor and Council Members need to re-think this under-scaled demo project before it pedals away.

 

Photo: Bikedispenser.com