The Bay Area Air Quality Management District announced yesterday that within the next year, San Francisco plans to start the United States’ first regional bike sharing program, offering bikes to members in San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto, and Mountain View, California.
Like a car-sharing program, people can sign up and pay a fee to become members, meaning that they would be able to check out a bike and ride it to any other station in the network. Members would unlock cars with either a prepaid membership card or a credit card, and then be charged based on how long the bike is checked out. There will be no charge for rides 30 minutes or less.