(More) Goings On About Town

"It's Bird, It's a Plane, It's a . . . "

. . . "Nice Ride Minnesota" bike sharing station!

A block from The Birchwood Cafe in Minneapolis' Seward neighborhood, I coudn't figure out what I was looking at.

It didn't look like a new bus stop -- too big.

And it didn't look like a new bus shelter (what was it doing in the street??).

"It" turned out to be a sleek bike rack stocked with shiny, new (lime!) green bikes -- part of the Twin Cities' "Nice Ride Minnesota" new bike sharing program.

Less than 5 minutes later, I ran into a second location -- outside the (terrific) Seward Co-op.

It turns out that there are 60(!) such stations, already installed or scheduled to be.

Take that, Portland!

P.S.: And no, the bikes aren't available year-round. In a concession to our, umm, "challenging" climate, the bikes are out of commission from November until April.