Tel Aviv is going green. The Israeli city has joined European cities – Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona,  London – which have bicycles for rent at stations on streets and boulevards all over town. The Tel Aviv program is called Tel-O-Fun, a play on the Hebrew word for bicycle ofanaim. Bikes are stationed about every 500 meters throughout the city and you can spot them by their bright color, eco green.

Tel-O-Fun made an early appearance at an anchor station on Rothschild Boulevard a few months ago. A sign on the eco-green stand announced that bikes would soon be available here for rent. Another stand showed up on Allenby Street. Soon stations were surfacing on streets and boulevards all over town with steel posts lined up at their side. One morning 12 bikes were leashed to their numbered poles at the corner of Ben Zion Boulevard and King George Street. It wasn’t long before people were riding eco-green bikes along bicycle paths on Ibn Gvirol, Ben Gurion Boulevard, and others around the city.

Grassroots Beginnings

The greening of Tel Aviv surfaced suddenly, but its preparation started more than a decade ago when the grassroots program to create bike lanes was initiated by visionaries in a city planning office. It was part of a global program called Critical Mass. Word got out that bikers interested in creating bike paths in Tel Aviv could begin by meeting on the last Friday of the month at Kikar Malkei Yisrael, now Kikar Rabin. And so it happened that a raggle-taggle group of biking enthusiasts would start out from the Kikar when the quiet of Shabbat descended and the streets were safe to bike together. They made their way to the promenade on the beach. The Critical Mass website shows a photograph of this group from 1998. Some Fridays they continued north to Park Hayarkon; other Fridays they would take a southern route to Yaffo. The herd was shepherded by a fellow with a pennant on a tall stick attached to his bike.

The group had attitude: “We're not blocking traffic, We ARE the traffic!” the website declared. Besides the Friday afternoon rides, Critical Mass held monthly meetings at Beit Tami on Shenkin Street. The place was full of excitement. There were films of the movement in European cities, and Marcos Szeinuk from the city planning office reported on the progress that was being made locally. Colorful T-shirts with the logo Tel Aviv bishvil ofanaim – “Tel Aviv is for bicycles”  – were sold to raise funds and awareness. The logo is a wordplay on the Hebrew word shvil meaning “path” or “lane”, and bishvil, meaning “for the purpose of”.

The manifesto in the Critical Mass website conveys the sense of wry humor that characterized the initiative: 

(a small essay on Critical Mass)

Friends, fellow cyclists, Green Warriors, the time has come to take up arms against the dark forces of fossil fuel driven industrial capitalism! For too long life loving human powered commuters have suffered under the yoke of the car. Yet, we will prevail!

Alienated from Mother Nature by an ethos of nihilistic consumerism and the all pervading power of multi-national controlled mass media, the people must be shaken out of this octane-induced delirium. Comrades, we must hit the streets and strike at the very core of this evil that threatens to engulf humanity in a sea of acid rain and asphyxiate the planet in a cloud of CO2. Don't be fooled, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are Mitsubishi, Exxon, General Motors, Chevron... Printed on the bumper of every automobile is the word, "DOOM!"

So, join the movement that is Critical Mass. All you have to lose are your keychains... All you have to gain is the world. 

This play on Karl Marx’s communist manifesto attracted a variety of individuals who comprised the group of Friday afternoon bikers. The website described who they were: 

Some people come along to Critical Mass in support of fewer cars, more public transport and less pollution. Others ride for improved health and to promote safety for cyclists. Others turn out to demonstrate that cyclists are a part of the traffic mix entitled to specific paths and planning. And everyone comes on Critical Mass to have fun.

Commuters, recreational cyclists, students, work commuters and families bring out their bikes and ride together as one colorful, festive bunch. Roads that are daunting and dangerous for a cyclist to navigate alone become safer to ride within "the Mass". The ride gives cyclists a taste of the safety and pleasure that could be an everyday experience if a comprehensive bicycle path network existed.

Critical Mass aims to promote cycling and demonstrate that there is an alternative to contemporary society's dependence on cars, fossil fuels and more roads. Bicycles are recognized by some governments (such as the Danish, Flemish and Dutch) as the most energy-efficient mode of transport, even less energy-intensive than walking. In the face of worsening traffic problems and urban air pollution it is apparent that cars and roads as a model for mass community transport isn't working. 

Eventually, the routes mapped out by these Friday afternoon bikers became incorporated into the plans for city renewal. Neighborhoods have been steadily undergoing disruptions with sewer lines and electrical lines dug up and replaced and newly paved sidewalks installed. Bike lanes were an integral part of the design of this city upheaval. The municipality put up signs, painted lines on the streets, and sidewalks were paved in a pattern that designated exactly where bikers should go. The necessary infrastructure was ready for the Tel-O-Fun bike rental stations. They are now spaced about 500 meters apart all over the “white city”. 

Joining Tel-O-Fun

At city hall on Ibn Gvirol there is a desk on the second floor where you can sign up to join. Annual subscription is NIS 240 for Tel Aviv residents; 280 for others. Eventually daily, weekly and monthly subscriptions will be available. The program is still in the early stages. When you join, you receive a contract in English (if you request it) that explains the rules and regulations.

People who are joining Tel-O-Fun are active busy professionals. Some already own bikes and some own cars too. They find it convenient to hop on a bike at a station near home and ride to a station on the other side of town where they lock it up. The first 30 minutes are free to subscribers. People use the service according to their needs. The seat can be easily adjusted to the user’s height and leg length.

I talked to a young woman who was locking up her bike at the anchor station on Ibn Gvirol by Kikar Rabin. She was on her way to a shop nearby to print out and bind an article she had written. When she locked up her bike, the computer housed inside the anchor station registered that the bike had been returned and the rental reverted to zero. After ten minutes she could rent a bike again from any station for another 30 minutes free of charge. While I was talking to her, another person came along and took the bike she had just returned. Since stations are spaced about every 500 meters all around the city, there is little need to pay more than the initial yearly subscription fee.

I know one young couple who live in Ramat Gan. They are bikers who own expensive bikes and also own a car. They joined Tel-O-Fun for short treks in town. A young professional told me that he owns a bike but joined Tel-O-Fun for the convenience of riding from one station to another where the bike can be locked up and forgotten. He says, “If I don't intend to come back by bike, renting one and leaving it at another station is convenient.” He sometimes rents a bike to go to the beach or to an art class or a concert.

One young fellow says, “It’s convenient. I rent a bike about five times a day.” A young professional-looking woman says she is happy with renting the bike even though she owns a bike, but doesn’t want to lug it up the steps to her flat. The small holder with shock cords behind the seat was handy for a woman who was delivering a shopping bag full of stuff to her mother in town. 

The Nerve Centers inside the Anchor Stations

The anchor stations contain the computers that allow all the bikes to be monitored. There is an interactive screen that gives anyone who taps on the icons the information they need. You can choose English or Hebrew and find out how the program works, subscription rates, and what stations are nearby. If there is a problem you call *6070 and tell the person who answers what the problem is and they take care of it. 

The Smartphone Application

A free app for smartphones called telobike coordinates the GPS and the navigator map to enable you to see where the Tel-O-Fun bike stations are located throughout the city. When you open the app you get a dialogue box asking you to identify your current location. Feedback regarding the app is available by emailing telobike@citylifeapps.com. I requested information for this article and got an immediate response from Elad Ben David, the person who had set up the app as a public service.

Here’s how the app works: Tap the label “settings” to choose English or Hebrew for the list of stations. The list gives the address of each station, how many kilometers the station is from your phone location, how many bikes are available to rent and how many empty parking slots are available. Tap “my location” at the top of the list of stations and the screen shows an interactive GPS street map. Green squares with an icon of a bike show the exact location of the bike anchor stations near you. Toggling between the list of stations and the street map gives you all the information you need to find a destination where you can rent or park a bike. The stations are monitored and checked from a central station that responds to any problems that are reported.

For more information, check out the website http://www.tel-o-fun.co.il/en/ or call *6070. 

Miriam Greenfield is from Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and is managing editor of Science in Context, an international journal edited at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University. She attended Critical Mass meetings and biked with the Friday afternoon group who set up the original bike paths.