I remember when Brandon, where I live, experimented with a program called “White Bikes.” The idea — ambitious, and (for Brandon) jaw-droppingly progressive — was that reclaimed bikes would be tuned up by volunteers, painted white, and left around the city at designated stations.

If you needed a bike, you could just hop on, ride away, and return it later, when you were done.

Tragically, the optimists who came up with the system were no match for the citizens of Brandon who tended to:

a) shun the bikes as for poor people only
b) take them and never return them
c) take them for joy-riding, which inevitably destroyed them.

The program didn’t last long.

I’ve read of other systems, in other cities, that have suffered similar fates, and they’ve come up with a few solutions — mostly, make people pay.

And, it seems to work in Dublin. From globalPost:

A free bicycle scheme in this rainy metropolis of narrow roads, potholes and, it has to be said, bicycle thieves, has been a spectacular triumph. Indeed Dublin City Council boasts that the program is “the most successful in the world by any measure.”

Despite predictions that the 450 specially-made bikes, available from 40 stations around the city, would quickly be stolen or tossed in the River Liffey by vandals, only two have been pilfered in the first six months of operation. These were quickly recovered, and none have been vandalized, according to council spokesman Paul Finan.

It helps that the bicycle is ugly and that one needs a credit card to use it. The machine is free for the first half an hour, but costs half a euro ($0.67) for the first full hour, and 6.50 euros for four hours. This ensures that riders don’t leave them lying around, otherwise the final charge on their credit card would be substantial.

I don’t consider that ideal — a substantial portion of the population doesn’t have a credit card, and I kind of hate the fact that we’re rapidly requiring one for everyday life.

But I can’t argue with the fact that it’s working. Good for Dublin.