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Paris shows the world how to share

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Tue, 07/17/2007 - 14:01 by darren

Velib' cyclists
Image by malias

On this past Sunday, Paris opened its massive bicycle sharing program, "Velib'". With 10,000 bicycles and 750 stations, it's even bigger than the famous Copenhagen system, City Bike. The system, similar to that of Lyon, has some interesting features, beyond the fact that the bikes are everywhere you look: The first half hour is free; the bikes have lights, baskets and fenders, key utilitarian components; the bike frames are an open-style for easy mounting; and anyone with a credit card can walk up and pick one up.

News outlets are interested. (Globe and Mail, Boston Globe, Washington Post). Maybe big ideas are part of being a world class city.

While people will continue to want better bicycle infrastructure, this should give a huge boost to the prominence of the bicycle on Paris streets. More cyclists can only help with raising the awareness of motorists and making more people feel comfortable riding their own bikes.

The cost of this system is in the form of advertising. The city of Paris is not paying a thing beyond the granting of ad space.

Would people in Toronto like to see a program like Velib' put in place here? Would you be willing to trade air pollution for 'visual pollution'? Ads-on-bicycles seems like a small price to pay for cleaner air and safer streets. Or would you prefer to see BikeShare resurrected? Could Toronto support both systems? If you have an opinion, share in the comments section.

Tags: 
international
bike sharing

Comments

vic

30 Minutes Free

Tue, 07/17/2007 - 12:32

I really like that the bikes are free for the first 30 minutes. This would totally encourage people to borrow bikes for those quick hops around town. And if you have a bunch of errands to run, you can keep borrowing bikes as you go between places, not worrying about your own bicycle.

30 minutes on a bike can take you pretty far in TO.

Sean Galbraith (not verified)

Sadly...

Tue, 07/17/2007 - 14:16

This just re-inforces how not a world city Toronto is.

darren

Scarborough BikeShare

Tue, 07/17/2007 - 14:18

Apparently Scarborough is seeing a new BikeShare program.

-dj

tt (not verified)

that woman is the epitome of Parisian, non?!

Tue, 07/17/2007 - 14:44

I love Paris! Why can't we have this here? Since we are already getting ads everywhere on our street furniture why NOT have them pay for a massive bike program like this?

Perhaps we just don't have enough 'on-the-street' infrastructure (or education for drivers) to handle it? that is the only 'reason' I can think of as to why the heck we wouldn't have Astral do this for the city.

Large Marge

Bike vending vs. lending

Thu, 07/19/2007 - 18:48

Bike vending was going to be a part of the street harmonization project but there was outcry at the time to support our homegrown Bikeshare instead.
Councillor Heaps seems keen on getting something like this implemented for tourists and such (i.e. hubs at major hotels and attractions). Just what we need... a bunch of inexperienced and lost tourists, on bikes in the downtown core. Actually, that might be just the "traffic-calming" measure that we do need, to force the City into adding more lanes and trails.

Darren_S

Forget it - bikes that is.

Thu, 07/19/2007 - 22:29

Large Marge, Bike Share Dead. Bike Plan gagging for air on life support... and everything else is on the chopping block with the Mayor's latest failure. It is the same scenario(no money) every year, it is just playing out a little earlier.

Best we can hope for is your scenario of using cyclists as inexpensive speed bumps... it just won't be tourists they are using cause they have no money to give tourists bikes.

anthony

Not just Paris...

Sat, 07/21/2007 - 19:12

See: Discover Brussels on a bicycle

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