ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the history and technical evolution of bikeshare; maps its potential instrumental, cultural and environmental value to cities and explores the ways in which the configuration of contemporary schemes has become increasingly aligned with the underlying logics of the smart city. Through bias inscribed at the level of design and implementation, smart bikeshare systems are shown to operate primarily in the support of sectoral interests. The chapter also explores previous scholarship, which focuses on strategies and practices that might reorient smart bikeshare both as an equitable mode of transport and as a political platform. Moreover, it describes how democratic interventions might be used tactically to build networks of influence across multiple domains and in the process effect systemic social transformation. The chapter concludes with an examination of the potential of creative design both to mitigate many structural, economic and procedural barriers to equity and to foster knowledge sharing and decision-making practices that might (re)position riders as co-creators of the schemes they appropriate.
