As an avid bike rider and as someone who does not hold a driver’s license, I think Dan Maes’ statements about bikes are right on target. Denver’s B-Cycle program is chiefly for show and will do more harm than good.

Although the City of Denver doesn’t directly fund the B-Cycle program, it does provide support by lending city workers’ time and by donating city property for some of the B-Cycle stations. Also, by promoting the program, the city legitimizes it with its government imprimatur, an approval that amounts to very effective advertising.

Although Denver city government purports to support small businesses, this bicycle program has the potential to hurt city businesses. With B-Cycle, the city is undercutting bicycle rental shops, bike dealers, and bike repair shops. Citizens will be less likely to buy a new bike when they can rent one at a subsidized price. Plus, bike riders won’t have to pay for repairs to these bikes, for that’s subsidized and managed by the city too.

When government takes over services and trade that are best handled by the private sector, everyone loses. Imagine how far the government could go with this policy. To promote more vegetable consumption, the city could open vegetable stands all over Denver, undercutting established markets.

To promote cloth diaper use, the city could go into the diaper selling and laundry business, undercutting established cloth diaper businesses and decreasing the sales of those selling disposable ones. The bike program hurts business and sets a bad precedent. It doesn’t fit in with our economic structure or the local culture.

Most of the people I’ve seen riding the bikes are not the ones the city aims to help. I haven’t seen any single parents commuting from their second to their third jobs. I haven’t seen an ambitious student riding to campus to attend a class (and there aren’t any B-Cycle stations on the Auraria Campus, perhaps Denver’s biggest bike destination).

The people I mostly observe riding B-Cycle bikes are suburban couples, people who have credit cards which are necessary to participate in the program. “Honey, let’s try that.” They often ride side-by-side, oblivious to the hundreds of bicyclists who use the bike trails and lanes for genuine transportation, making biking in Denver more dangerous. Many don’t follow bike trail etiquette.

I know that Dan Maes’ comments about the UN and about the organization ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability sounded silly to many. But a closer analysis shows that his point is well taken. ICLEI is headquartered in Bonn, Germany and has a decidedly Western European perspective.

Western European countries are much different than the central United States in terms of human ecology and political economy. They are welfare states that are, for the most part, culturally homogenous. In those countries, government has traditionally provided many essential consumer services. But taking a model that works in welfare states and placing it here is unfair to the local businesses that operate in the American economic system.

The B-Cycle program is pleasing to many because it is politically correct and makes middle-class Americans feel less guilty about using natural resources. A better way to bring about sustainability would be to check the high birth rates in developing countries.

That’s where the greatest threat lies, and the B-Cycle program is mere window dressing that masks the overburdening problem of global overpopulation. It’s much easier and more satisfying to congratulate oneself for renting a B-Cycle for half an hour than it is to focus on the real problems of global sustainability.

So, Dan Maes is right. B-Cycle hurts local businesses and hides more serious global problems behind a cloak of political correctness. I think we should listen to him more closely.

Jeffrey Beall lives in Denver. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.