New Bike-Sharing Program in Wrocław, Poland! {Videos & Pictures}

I’m a bicycle lover. In particular, I’m a huge proponent of bicycling for transportation purposes. Bicycles are super efficient (perhaps the most efficient transportation option out there), meaning they are very environmentally friendly and also save you and the city a lot of money. They are also a ton of fun to ride, good for your health, good for your mind, and highly accessible.

Read more about the benefits of bicycling and what I loved about living & biking in perhaps the world’s best bicycle city here:

1. 15 Things I Loved about Living & Bicycling in Groningen (the Netherlands) +25 Pictures
2. Bike to Work Day TODAY {Bike Photos & Top 10 Reasons to Bike}

However, in some cases, using your own bike for transportation purposes is impractical. For this reason, from the first time I heard about bicycle-sharing programs (like the huge one in Paris, Velib), I fell in love with them.

They can get so many more people on bikes. They can making bicycling more practical and easier for so many people. And, so, they can do wonders for our environment and our society.

Now, I recently found out that Wrocław, Poland (the city where I now live) was getting one of these modern bike-sharing programs! The solar-powered bike stations just popped up a week or two ago, and the program actually launched just at the end of this week. I decided to pull out my camera and have a go at filming the stations and how they work to share that with you all here on EcoLocalizer. Here are some pictures and videos of the system:

Wrocław nextbike bike-sharing station in the city center

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Control panel where you put in your personal code (which you create when you sign up online) and unlock a bike.

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Another nextbike bike sharing station in the Wrocław city center. (click to enlarge)

Map of the stations. Blue dots (more visible in the first video below) are existing stations and gray dots are planned stations.

Solar panel on top powers the check-out station.

Full picture of control station with instructions and additional info on bottom.

Bike-sharing program info. Mentions that there are also nextbike programs in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Latvia -- if you are a member of any, you are a member of all (just costs 1 Polish złoty or about 33 cents to join the Poland program).

Sorry, but the quality of the videos is not very good — I don’t use this feature often and probably didn’t do something correctly. Also, the battery ran out in the second video, but right at a good time, I think, as I was just going to explain what I already explained in the captions of some of the photos above.

Very cool! I’m yet to sign up, but planning on doing so this weekend. Will share a little more info on the details of the program once I do.

In the meantime, you can learn more about the largest such programs in the world in the videos and articles below:

1. China’s Amazing Bike Sharing System
2. #5 Paris, France: Great Bicycle City Photo Tour
3. #8 Barcelona, Spain: Great Bicycle City Photo Tour
4. London Plans Bicycle Sharing Program
5. London Cycle Scheme “Boris Bikes” Visualized

And you can read about US bike sharing programs, including NYC’s upcoming bicycle sharing program, here:

1. New York City Bicycle Sharing Program to be BIG!
2. New York City Bike-Sharing Program Plans Move Forward
3. New Bike-Sharing Program in Chicago & Washington, DC Bike-Sharing Program Getting 10x Bigger
4. DC’s Capital Bikeshare is a Red Hot Success Story in One Year!

Have more news, commentary, questions on these programs? I invite you to utilize the comment section below!