Felix Salmon suggests that churches should team up with bikeshare programs to offer transportation opportunities to the poor:
Churches know their flocks, after all, and might well be interested in giving out memberships to those who need them, and taking on a contingent liability in the process. All you’d need is a single credit card belonging to the church, which could then deal in its own way with any congregant who ran up that $1,000 charge. The Capital Bikeshare scheme has been built in a very cautious manner, carefully constructed so that everybody with a membership needs to have a credit card associated with that membership. That in turn allows Capital Bikeshare to be sure that it can collect $1,000 every time a member loses their bike for whatever reason. This system was set up ex ante, with no indication of how often such a fine would turn out to be necessary — and it has essentially excluded the unbanked from Bikeshare.
(Photo: 'Forever Bicycles,' an installation made from 1,000 bicycles by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. By Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images.)
The Dish 