Economy
Bike-Sharing for the Unbanked
D.C. tries to find a way to include residents who don't have credit cards
Just about every bike-share program in existence requires, before you undock a bike from a station anywhere in town, that you first insert some plastic. A credit or a debit card, generally either one will do. This transaction is crucial to the entire model of bike-sharing. The ride may only cost a dollar, but if you inserted one in paper form, as if into a vending machine, what would prevent people from swiping bikes instead of sharing them?
“It’s sort of our insurance policy,” says Josh Moskowitz, the program manager for the Capital Bikeshare system in Washington, D.C.