Bicycle power coming to Democratic National Convention

Scripps Howard News Service

By KEVIN VAUGHAN

Scripps Howard News Service

The 1968 Democratic National Convention may have had petal power, but the 2008 version in Denver promises to have pedal power.

Healthcare giant Humana is sponsoring a program that will see 1,000 bikes in Denver that can be checked out and used during the convention, scheduled Aug. 25-28. After the convention, some of the bikes will be left behind to kick-start a permanent sharing project.

The idea is simple: Provide an environmentally friendly way for delegates, staff members and even members of the news media to navigate the crush of people expected for the convention. But it's about more than getting people out of their cars.

"That's part of it, but it's more to help with healthy lifestyle and environment," said Humana spokeswoman Anna Hobbs-Little.

The exact details of the program are scheduled to be announced Wednesday afternoon at a press conference featuring Gov. Bill Ritter and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.

Dubbed "Freewheelin," the program is being sponsored by Humana in concert with the Boulder, Colo.-based group Bikes Belong. The bicycles will come from every major manufacturer in the U.S., including Trek, Specialized, Giant, Cannondale, Fuji, and Raleigh. And they'll come in a variety of colors.

Tim Blumenthal, head of Bikes Belong, said he could not discuss many details of the project before Wednesday's announcement. But he said his group hopes that the project will give bicycling a boost.

"Our goal is to show that bicycling for short trips in big U.S. cities can work," Blumenthal said. "We think during the convention a lot of the trips are going to be made between the Convention Center and the Pepsi Center, between hotels and both ... and there are going to be a lot of people who want to go down on the Cherry Creek path and get some fresh air."

Humana and Bikes Belong launched a project that is very similar to Denver's in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where the Republican National Convention is scheduled Sept. 1-4. As in Denver, officials in the Twin Cities hope to create a long-term bicycle sharing program out of the convention project.

A similar project is just getting off the ground in Washington, D.C. SmartBikeDC requires users to pay a $40 annual subscription and imposes a $200 fine for any bicycle not returned within 48 hours, according to the organization's Web site.

In Denver, users will have to provide a credit card when they check out the bicycles, and they will have to return them to another kiosk set up as part of the program.

If past experience is any judge, the security is necessary. Efforts to set out free bicycles and loan them on the honor system have failed in other cities.

"Half those bikes ended up in the creek," Blumenthal said. "The other half ended up in somebody's garage."

This time around, the hope is that the bicycles will be on the streets, being used again and again, for years.

And it's not just the bicycles that will be part of the green effort.

The racks where they're stored, and the kiosks where they'll be checked out and returned, will be solar powered.

(Kevin Vaughan writes for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver)