There is a new development in the city that is quite smart. It's a system for bikes which are at subway stations and other selected spots around the city. and you can use your subway card to unlock them, and then ride them and return it to any of the other locations in the city. The first half hour of use each time is free, but after that there is some charge.
As great as this is, there has been one part of the city which has been doing this for decades already, it's NTU (National Taiwan University). I've talked about this school a couple of times before on this blog. One feature it has above most schools is that it for Taiwan (and Taipei especially) it's campus is quite large. While i'd say it's still quite walkable, Taipei is a place where a ten minute walk is considered a far distance by most people. This means that everybody who goes to NTU usually gets a bike.
Nobody gets a new bike however. If somebody wants a bike they go to the bike repair shop right there on campus to get a bike. But even this is not necessary, because there are a lot of "free" bikes around the campus.
As you can see there are tons of bikes lined up in the various bike parking spots and bike racks around the campus. Most people when they need to use a bike they just...borrow a bike. People will take a bike from one bike rack, ride it to where they need to go, leave it there, and be on with their day.
This "policy" is so prevalent now a days that people usually don't even bother locking their bikes, they just leave them unlocked. But yes for the most part when people are "borrowing" bikes they are breaking the lock and then using the bike. But this is almost to be expected, so like i said before those who do actually buy a bike, get a cheap old used one. I have never seen a bike at NTU that looks like it's less than 20 years old.
It's cool to see that these great young minds inspired the Taipei city government to do a similar thing. I can't wait until this idea comes to scooters! I'd love to be able to "borrow" a scooter every now and then.
