Cycle of discontent over bike scheme

Beijing has piloted a government-sponsored bike rental scheme to ease the city's gridlocked traffic, however, at present, the system only accepts registered Beijing residents, giving rise to complaints that the system is discriminatory.　
According to an announcement from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport Saturday, there are 2,000 bikes for hire in 63 locations near subway exits in Dongcheng and Chaoyang districts. The number of rental bikes will be upped to 50,000 in 2015.

A staff member from the rental service center, who asked for anonymity, said yesterday that cyclists can use the bikes for free for the first hour and afterward the price is one yuan per hour. The ceiling for 24 hours is 10 yuan ($1.5).

People must go to the designated locations to register with an ID card and a local transportation smart card.

However, only those with a Beijing hukou (household registration) are eligible to rent the bikes, excluding Beijing's migrant and foreign populations, and tourists.　

"We've only put 2,000 bikes into service now, so please understand our policy, since it's more convenient for us to collect the bikes or find the person if there's an accident, for example, if the bike is stolen," the employee said.　

As more bikes are provided, it will cover all people living in the city and visitors to Beijing.

Ji Yan, an employee of a NGO located in Beijing from Hebei Province, complained that the scheme is unfair.

"I applaud the launch of this policy, but why does it exclude people without a Beijing hukou? It's a kind of discrimination against us," he said.　

At a rental outlet in Dongsishitiao, Dongcheng district, which has nearly 50 bikes, almost half the bikes were rented out yesterday.

But a university student who planed to rent a bike to cycle to the Lama Temple gave up when he found it was complicated and inconvenient to register for the service.　

"I thought I could just use my travel card to rent the bike, but I was told after I arrived that I must go to another place to register and sign a contract before renting the bike," he said.

There was no notice informing prospective renters about where to go to register.

A number of bike rental businesses have launched in the capital, but so far none have been very successful. Shanghai's Forever Bicycles pulled out of a three-million yuan pilot program in Dongcheng district in December 2011, after failing to win a government contract to expand the program.