Cycling in Paris

[Ryan Mallery]

velib.fr

For five euros a week one can rent   access to touring bikes around the city. The bikes are contained at lock stands within walking distance from everywhere. They bikes themselves are nothing special but your payment allows you to take a bike for 30 minutes at a time (which is plenty of time to travel from one  lock stand to the lock stand nearest to your intended destination).

Two years ago I was in Paris for a few days and would see a few cyclists here and there riding older touring bikes, mostly the type with internal hubs. Now since velib  has come out, I have seen bikes everywhere. It is especially popular for 20 something EU tourists.

After talking with my French hosts at a conference I am attending here, I have learned that the velib program is very successful, and has brought with it an improvement in bike lanes, safety for cyclists and transportation in general.  Hopefully US cities can adopt a similar model.

[Alex Thompson]

Barcelona has a similar program where you sign up on the web and then you have access to 1500 bikes in 100 locations.  The bikes are a little weird looking but people were riding them everywhere = there were a lot of bikes and 70% were these bikes.

http://www.bicing.com/