WHEELS Wednesday: Bike-Sharing Shifts Into High Gear

Bicycle-sharing programs are taking off. There's one starting up in Chicago, the Sun-Times says. Bike-sharing already exists in Denver, Colo.. Here's a blog about bike-sharing.

And, Boulder, Colo., home of the University of Colorado, is experimenting with the "Bus Then Bike" program, that provides bike lockers near bus-stops, so bicyclists can bike to the bus, but not have to take their bike on the bus that has limited rack space, or chance locking it up against a tree or post near the bus-stop, unsure whether it will be safe during their time away.

One theme of recent transit spending--better late than never--is funding links from central business districts to airports, which are a huge source-point of carbon emissions from all those taxis, buses and cars feeding airplane passengers to the terminals--as well as taking them away to the ground destinations.

So, it's not surprising that the feds are handing out $1.58 billion to 27 transit projects, including a light-rail link from downtown Denver, CO to its airport--reducing the carbon footprint of that massive facility, the Environment News Service reports. Other projects including a New York rail connection from Long Island commuter lines to Grand Central station (the lines now go to Penn Station), further work on connecting DC to its Dulles International Airport, and a Minneapolis-St. Paul light-rail connection, which would (by implication) connect Minnesota's capital city to the Twin City's airport (MSP) via an existing link that runs from downtown Minneapolis to MSP.

By the way, rail links to LAX's (busiest airport on the west coast of North America) terminals are not even in the planning stage.