Decades ago, bicycles were a predominant mode of transport mode in China, to the point where China was known as the “Kingdom of Bicycles”. Rapid economic growth coupled with urbanization led to a surge in car buying and a decline in biking. In an effort to reduce smog in Chinese cities and encourage sustainable transport, many municipalities are investing in building or enhancing public bike sharing infrastructure. For the most part, modern Chinese cities, being large and dense in composition, have embraced the bike share system well; Hangzhou and Wuhan boast 70,000 and 90,000 bikes respectively.

Some municipalities, however, have had trouble. Due to a lack of service points, the inconvenience of renting and returning, and difficulty in maintenance and replacement, the public bike share in Changzhou has failed to take off. The city’s 2,000 public bikes are rusting from lack of use and maintenance. Changzhou has not abandoned the imitative, however.  Recently, 500 new bikes were installed at 25 service points in Xinbei District. To increase convenience, the service points are located around administrative service centers, schools, residential communities and major public places.

Zhongshan is interested in expanding and centralizing the bike programs in its districts. At present, there are 10,800 public bikes in Zhongshan, a result of Sanxiang Town and Guzhen Town in Huoju opening their own public bike programs. Tanzhou Town initiated its public bike program last year but failed to secure investment after the first two rounds of bidding. This year, Zhongshan will purchase 6,000 public bikes: 2,000 bikes will be introduced in Huoju Development District and Tanzhou Town, and the remaining 4,000 bikes will be installed in the main city area.

Beijing is also growing their public bike system. Beijing currently has 14,000 public bikes, with plans to expand to 50,000 by 2015. The main bike share system, “The Beijing Bike Share,” is the first municipal-led bike system, born from a public-private partnership that started in 2012 with 2,000 bikes and now has 7,000 bikes. The system has been optimized for metro card holders, making it simple for patrons to transfer easily from metro to bike and back again. Activating a metro card for the system requires a 400 yuan deposit, but for each unique use, bikes are free for the first hour, and after that there is a fee of one yuan per hour for a maximum of 10 yuan per day. Although the system is closes each night at midnight, the bikes can be held overnight, with costs suspended until the system opens at 6 AM the next morning.

An independent bike share enthusiast created www.beijingbikeshare.com, a website and mobile app for bike share users in English and Chinese that explains the details of how to register for the system, as well as the locations of the five bike share registration offices and 60+ bike stations. The fact that the municipality neglected to provide this service speaks to the lack of publicity the Beijing biking infrastructure receives. After experiencing the bikes for a weekend in March 2014, the authors of the China Urban Transport Newsletter issued the following recommendations:

• Make the registration process easier
• Create more offices where people can register and make them easy to find
• Promote the system and raise awareness of its use in both Chinese and English
• Ensure that current and future stations are well placed
• Improve signage indicating locations of bike stations, registration offices and bike paths
• Fix system glitches so that the system is more reliable
• Create a pamphlet containing a map of all the stations
• Display a map of all the stations at each station so that cyclists can plan their journey and know where to end their trip
• Create one integrated city-wide system and expand system to at least 50,000 bikes

As the authors noted, bikers can experience the city in a different way than metro riders, seeing restaurants, stores and venues that underground metro riders miss on their routes. Investing more in advertising and servicing the system might have a positive impact on local economies.