Of all the police stations I’ve spent a Thursday night in, this one was by far the weirdest. It was dank and poorly lit, with the metal skeletons of bicycles pouring out of every room, hallway and closet. The dust looked like it settled on the place 30 years ago and nobody ever decided to sweep it away.

At the corner of Colvin and Linden in North Buffalo, old Precinct 17 hasn’t been occupied by the Buffalo Police for years and gray years. But now there’s a new shift in the place, and it’s not the boys in blue. Rather it’s the bikes in blue—Buffalo Blue Bicycle, an innovative, bicycle-lending program dedicated to making bike transportation accessible to every Buffalo resident.

The idea for Blue Bicycle was hatched by Justin Booth, a soft-spoken giant of a man who works in City Hall, at the Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo & WNY. He saw a similar program—BikeShare—in Toronto and saw the potential benefits of such a program here. “It’s a healthy, economical and environmentally sustainable way to get around, and the workshops are great community-builders, too,” Booth says.

That’s what I’d arrived for, at Booth’s invitation: a Thursday night Blue Bicycle workshop. When I arrived, the sulking police station looked squat and deserted in the pre-dusk twilight. Closer inspection revealed a cardboard sign stuck up in the window with “Buffalo Blue Bicycle” scrawled in black magic marker. This wasn’t going to be the lycra-wearing, make-you-feel-stupid, gearhead set, that was clear from the get-go. A case of Molson just inside the door and a warm hello from Booth confirmed that. “Come on in, I’ll take you on the grand tour,” he said.

The system works like this: To become a member, one either gives a donation of $25 or volunteers six hours of his time to the Blue Bike cause in any capacity, whether it be fixing bikes, building racks or doing administrative work. Once he’s done that, the fleet of bicycles works like a lending library. Each member gets a username and password to sign into the Web site (www.buffalobluebicycle.org), where he can check out a bicycle from the nearest hub. Armed with a description of the bike and the combination to its lock, he can retrieve it and ride it wherever and whenever for up to two days. After returning the bike to any of the Blue Bike hubs, he simply checks it back in through the Web site.

And there’s the rub—it’s based on the honor system. Booth, a clear-eyed idealist and first-generation Buffalonian, sees it this way: “I’m hoping we can work on the honor system. I’m hoping that when people take ownership of the program by either volunteering or donating some money, they’re more likely to honor the system than abuse it.”

Such optimism has already carried this program pretty far, judging by the contents of Precinct 17. The “grand tour” takes me past spare parts that hang from every probable fixture, and some that aren’t so probable. One room holds a Pisa-like tower of bicycles of all shapes and sizes, to be broken down and used for parts and scrap. A closet holds nothing but rims and wheels. Just past the small workshop area, the bathroom even has spare parts scattered around in it.

But the real treasure room is in the back. That’s where all of the assembled blue bicycles lie in waiting. Along the right-hand wall, the Frankenstein bikes rest in a long row on a two-tier bike rack. The bikes aren’t grotesque in any way, just full of character. Spare parts from hundreds of scrapped bikes adorn each Blue Bicycle, meaning that each is unique in terms of its handlebars, seat, tires, reflectors—everything. But they’re all painted a sleek, bright, metallic blue, which lends them a proud, reliable look.

The assembled volunteers were a seemingly rag-tag bunch, as mismatched and individual as the bikes. There are three bike shop mechanics—Ryan Rayberg and Jake Bajdas from Rick’s Cycle Shop, and Tom Weber from Campus Wheelworks—bike tinkerer Ed Lang, arts development officer Lauren Mitchell and Booth. However they ended up here, roped in by Booth or an interest in bikes, they all have a common purpose: to make the program succeed. They are unassuming and jovial, happy to welcome whoever shows up and quick to give pointers to the unsure.

A typical night at the workshop involves working on Blue Bicycles and, for the uninitiated, the chance to learn bicycle maintenance hands-on. They’ll start you off by having you take a bicycle completely apart and reassembling it. Once you get the hang of which parts do what, they’ll teach you the finer points of maintaining a bike. But this night was different; major capital improvements were in the works by way of a new bike rack. We drank and talked and laughed and worked until the rack was complete, continuing what has become a year-and-a-half-long labor of love for this group.

Though Booth came across BikeShare four years ago, he really started pushing for Blue Bicycle in the last year and a half. The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus was an early sponsor, with its Active Living By Design Grant. That grant was focused on increasing physical activity and making environmental changes that would encourage physical modes of transit, like cycling and walking. Since then, the Medical Campus has continued to support Blue Bicycle, printing its brochures and helping cover its insurance costs. Buffalo Place and Keep Western New York Beautiful have been key partners in the effort, too.

That’s what everyone becomes who joins Blue Bicycle—a partner in the effort. The shop rules are an apt illustration. Written on the wall in the same black magic marker as the sign in the window, they are straightforward and leave no room for question. Certain things are expected of those who use the shop: “You can only fix your own bicycle if you build a Blue Bicycle first!” “Tubes, cables, brake pads, chains are for Blue Bicycles! If you need one you can make a donation or go to a bike shop.” In other words, in this effort the self is left behind and the community comes first.

There are currently only six hubs in the city, four along downtown Main Street and two on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. “This year we’re just trying to start up small, get the program up and running, work out the kinks to make sure it operates properly,” Booth says.

Thanks to a $25,000 federal CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation Air Quality) grant, Blue Bicycle will be growing by leaps and bounds next year. The Department of Transportation will use the money to build 36 new bike racks this winter, which will allow Blue Bicycle the chance to spread its reach across the city. And at Precinct 17, where things were winding down around 11pm, the fleet will continue to grow, piece by flawed piece.

For more information, visit the Blue Bicycle Web site at www.buffalobluebicycle.org or call Justin Booth at 851-4052.