News that Seattle’s pilot non-profit bike-share partnership with Pronto needs a financial bail-out after only a year was disappointing to some. The Seattle Times’ Danny Westneat said that it “deflates Seattle’s self-image.” I’m not sure anything is capable of deflating Seattle’s civic ego, but it’s a setback for a city that wants to be bikeable.

Pronto needs an additional $1.4 million from the city to get back on track. Some are arguing that the city should take over the program, or at the very least wipe out its debt so that operational revenues can cover expenses—a staffer at Seattle’s Department of Transportation says that it could run at break-even without the large debt service. It’s a bit like any start-up that underestimates the amount of capital needed to get to a sustainable revenue model.

There’s also the issue of scale: would more people use the system if it were more widely available? Bike advocates think so. Also, a story about fixing the program at the Seattle Bike Blog suggests that eliminating the helmet law for adults would streamline the system and make it an easier option for folks, though the city might not want to increase its liability on that front.

Still, is the experiment worth saving? Yes. If we intend this to be a key part of our transportation infrastructure, the cost is peanuts relative to what Bertha costs just sitting in place.

Then there’s the issue of go big or go home. The bike share program is not so much for hardcore cyclists but for attracting casual or new users for short-haul hops—still a valuable option for moving folks around. Westneat suggests adding electric bikes and expanding to neighborhoods like Fremont and Wallingford. But also, he points out the disconnectedness of the bike grid that we have—we don’t have yet an effective, seamless dedicated system of bike lanes and paths.

As I have written before, we once did have such a system–over 20 miles of dedicated bike paths that we built in the 1890s and early 1900s. It was a system cobbled together: some routes ran over private property, maintenance of the dirt and cinder paths required dedicated volunteer efforts. And it was hard to keep other users off these groomed routes—wagons, livestock and later cars kept intruding on the bicycle paths and damaging them. Still, one could have ridden from Ballard to Georgetown through the heart of downtown on them, or from Magnolia to Leschi. Those folks on one-speed bikes of that era had powerful legs, and they used them. By 1910, however, many of the bike paths were being converted to auto dominated boulevards or absorbed by the real estate boom.

Could we go beyond sharrows, cycle tracks and greenways to a model to rededicate whole roads to bike-only use? Could some parts of the boulevard and street grid system that were designed to connect disparate parts of the city be converted to bike-only use? Could our under-utilized system of alleys be drafted into a new bike-only network? It wouldn’t be easy, but it could be possible through public investment and use of eminent domain. Reviving effective tools and policies of the past can be done—look at our recommitment to streetcars and rail now that we’ve realized the rubber tire era won’t get us where we need to go.

Think if bike-share could be expanded in an urban landscape more friendly to cyclists with a dedicated bike boulevard and street system that served the emerging urban landscape.