Say Anything Blog

The funny thing about socialists is that they never seem to learn from their past failures.  No matter how many times you point out to them how socialism has failed they just claim that it failed because it wasn’t done right.

Case in point, the intent of some NDSU students to copy a failed UND program that puts bikes all over campus for public use.

In an effort to become greener, the NDSU student government is trying to bring some yellow to campus. If all goes as planned, next fall there will be bright yellow bikes scattered across campus for students to use free of charge.

“It is a nice way for people to get around campus instead of walking around,” said Joseph Henning, senator for the College of Pharmacy, Nursing and Allied Sciences. “It would also be a way to have fun on a nice spring day.”

Henning, who is a member of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee, said he and others got the idea to bring a bicycle sharing program to NDSU after other area campuses started similar projects. The University of North Dakota, in partnership with its Wellness Center, began its program last spring when it dumped 30 bright green bikes on campus. According to its organizers, the rules at UND are simple: “If you find a green bike leaning against a wall, post, or wherever the last rider left it, get on and ride to your destination.

After you get there, leave the bike in an obvious place for the next rider. It’s that simple,” they wrote.

What’s unbelievable is that there is plenty of evidence that leaving free bikes laying all over the place results in nothing but a lot of bikes getting stolen or vandalized.  At UND they started a program exactly like this a year ago with 36 bikes.  Ten of those bikes are left, the rest having been either stolen or taken out of commission by vandalism.  In Paris, which has one of the largest free bike programs in the world, they’re losing thousands of bikes a year to theft and vandalism according to the article linked above:

In Paris, which boasts one of the most successful bike-sharing programs in the world, 7,800 bikes have disappeared and over 11,000 have been vandalized in the last year an a half, according to Le Parisen.

It’s not surprising that people would steal/vandalize free bikes left around.  Because what incentive to people have to care for things they didn’t have to pay for?  We see this same thing with public housing projects and other types of welfare.  People abuse it, because they haven’t earned it.

The defense from the student government to questions about feasibility of this program is that bikes are relatively cheap, so they can just replace what’s stolen or damaged.  Clearly, these students aren’t the ones paying for the bikes either.