World's largest bike-share system in China dwarfs popular U.S. program

Washington D.C.'s successful bike-share system, Capital Bikeshare, has been a hit recently (I wrote about it here). But to put its success into perspective take a look at the world's largest bike-share system. Because while Capital Bikeshare is the largest bike-sharing system in the U.S., a massive bike-share system in the Chinese city of Hangzhou makes Capital Bikeshare look like it's still riding with training wheels.

In the city of nearly 7 million, the bike-share system -- started in 2008 -- has more than 50,000 bikes. By comparison, Capital Bikeshare -- started in 2010 -- has about 1,100.

This is not to get down on Capital Bikeshare, only to show that the U.S. cities still have a long way to go in order to catch-up with the world's most bike-friendly cities.

Here's more on this world-class bike-sharing system from Streetfilms:

Hangzhou's 2,050 bike-share stations are spaced less than a thousand feet from each other in the city center, and on an average day riders make 240,000 trips using the system. Its popularity and success have set a new standard for bike-sharing in Asia. And the city is far from finished. The Hangzhou Bicycle Company plans to expand the bike-share system to 175,000 bikes by 2020!

See it for yourself in this Streetsfilm video below:

Amazing stuff.

[Via Shareable]

Photo: Payton Chung/Flickr

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com