One of America’s most walkable and least drivable cities is quickly becoming bike friendly as well. Last Thursday, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino signed a contract with Alta Bicycle Share to set up and maintain the city’s first bicycle sharing program. The program, which will be called Hubway, will operate like bike sharing schemes in Montreal or Paris.

When Hubway launches in July, there will be 600 bikes available at 61 solar-powered kiosks throughout the city, and the program will operate between March and November each year. For now, Hubway bikes will based solely inside Boston’s city limits. Neighboring communities, including Cambridge, Somerville and Brookline, are ironing out details of the agreement with Alta and are expected to host Hubway bike kiosks within the coming year.

Mayor Menino has built quite a reputation as a bike-friendly mayor. In 2007 he hired former Olympic cyclist and urban planner Nicole Freedman to lead Boston Bikes, a campaign to improve conditions for cyclists and change the city’s reputation as a “minefield” for bicyclists”. Their efforts brought 35 miles of bike lanes and 1,600 bicycle parking spaces to the city, while doubling ridership in four years. Boston has previously been at the bottom of Bicycling Magazine’s annual list of best cities for cycling, but the new efforts towards sustainable transport seem to be working. The city is now being considered a “Future Best” city for cycling.

2011 promises to be a big year for bicycle sharing in the United States. Boston is the sixth major city to introduce a large-scale bike-share program (Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, Miami and Washington are the others), and success of Washington’s Capital Bikeshare, whose 10,700-plus members log about 3,000 trips a day, is any indicator, then the future looks bright for bike sharing not only in Boston, but in cities across the United States. And with gas prices hovering around the $4 mark, the timing couldn’t be better.