Paris Embraces Plan to Become City of...........

[JohnM]

Washington Post

Paris Embraces Plan to Become City of Bikes


By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 24, 2007

PARIS, March 23 -- Paris is for lovers -- lovers of food and art and wine, lovers of the romantic sort and, starting this summer, lovers of bicycles.
On July 15, the day after Bastille Day, Parisians will wake up to discover thousands of low-cost rental bikes at hundreds of high-tech bicycle stations scattered throughout the city, an ambitious program to cut traffic, reduce pollution, improve parking and enhance the city's image as a greener, quieter, more relaxed place.

By the end of the year, organizers and city officials say, there should be 20,600 bikes at 1,450 stations -- or about one station every 250 yards across the entire city. Based on experience elsewhere -- particularly in Lyon, France's third-largest city, which launched a similar system two years ago -- regular users of the bikes will ride them almost for free.

"It has completely transformed the landscape of Lyon -- everywhere you see people on the bikes," said Jean-Louis Touraine, the city's deputy mayor. The program was meant "not just to modify the equilibrium between the modes of transportation and reduce air pollution, but also to modify the image of the city and to have a city where humans occupy a larger space."

The Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delano?, has the same aim, said his aide, Jean-Luc Dumesnil: "We think it could change Paris's image -- make it quieter, less polluted, with a nicer atmosphere, a better way of life."
But there is a practical side, too, Dumesnil said. A recent study analyzed different trips in the city "with a car, bike, taxi and walking, and the bikes were always the fastest."

The Lyon rental bikes, with their distinctive silver frame, red rear-wheel guard, handlebar basket and bell, can also be among the cheapest ways to travel, because the first half-hour is free, and most trips are shorter than that.
"It's faster than the bus or metro, it's good exercise, and it's almost free," said Vianney Paquet, 19, who is studying law in Lyon. Paquet said that he uses the rental bikes four or five times a day and pays 10 euros (about $13) a year, half for an annual membership fee and half for rental credit that he never actually spends because his rides typically last just a few minutes.
Anthonin Darbon, director of Cyclocity, which operates Lyon's program and won the contract to start up and run the one in Paris, said 95 percent of the roughly 20,000 daily bike rentals in Lyon are free because of their length.
Cyclocity is a subsidiary of outdoor advertising behemoth JCDecaux, which runs much smaller bike businesses in Brussels, Vienna and the Spanish cities of Cordoba and Girona. London, Dublin, Sydney and Melbourne reportedly are considering similar rental programs.

The Cyclocity concept evolved from utopian "bike-sharing" ideas that were tried in Europe in the 1960s and '70s, usually modeled on Amsterdam's famous "white bicycle" plan, in which idealistic hippies repaired scores of bicycles, painted them white, and left them on the streets for anyone to use for free. But in the end, the bikes were stolen and became too beat-up to ride. A number of U.S. cities, including Portland, Ore., have also experimented with community-use bicycle programs.

JCDecaux experimented with designs and developed a sturdier, less vandal-prone bike, along with a rental system to discourage theft: Each rider must leave a credit card or refundable deposit of about $195, along with personal information. In Lyon, about 10 percent of the bikes are stolen each year, but many are later recovered, Darbon said.

And to encourage people to return bikes quickly, rental rates rise the longer the bikes are out. In Paris, for instance, renting a bike will be free for the first 30 minutes, $1.30 for the next 30 minutes, $2.60 for the third half-hour, and $5.20 for the fourth half-hour of use and every 30 minutes after that. That makes the cost of a two-hour rental about $9.10.

Membership fees in Paris will be steeper than in Lyon, from $1.30 for one day to about $38 for a year.

The Paris deal will bring the world's biggest bicycle fleet to the City of Light in a complex, 10-year public-private partnership.

JCDecaux will provide all of the bikes (at a cost of about $1,300 apiece) and build the pickup/drop-off stations. Each will have 15 to 40 high-tech racks connected to a centralized computer that can monitor each bike's condition and location. Customers can buy a prepaid card or use a credit card at a computerized console to release a bike.

The company will pay start-up costs of about $115 million and employ the equivalent of about 285 people full time to operate the system and repair the bikes for 10 years. All revenue from the program will go to the city, and the company will also pay Paris a fee of about $4.3 million a year.

In exchange, Paris is giving the company exclusive control over 1,628 city-owned billboards, including the revenue from them, for the same period. About half the billboard space will be given back to the city at no cost for public-interest advertising.

Based on statistics from Lyon, company officials estimate that each bicycle in Paris will be used on average 12 times a day, for a total of about 250,000 trips a day, or 91 million trips a year.

In Lyon, according to deputy mayor Touraine, the city's 3,000 rental bikes have logged about 10 million miles since the program started in May 2005, saving an estimated 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide from being spewed into the air. Overall, vehicle traffic in the city is down 4 percent, he said, and bicycle use has tripled, not just on account of Cyclocity, but also because the program has prompted a boom in private bicycle use and sales.

The main complaint voiced by riders is that at certain times in certain places -- such as mornings at local universities -- all the racks can be occupied, making it impossible to return a bike. "I'm going to start using my own bike, because sometimes there are not enough spaces in the rack" at school, said art student Cecile Noiser, 19.

Company and city officials said that because the system sends in electronic data about which bikes are where, they are exploring ways to redistribute bikes using trucks to better match customers' needs. Touraine said the glitches are minor compared with the benefits.

[drmarty]

Do you have to wear Spandex?

Marty

[KSagal]

I had thought that Lyon had segways in those bike kiosks as well. I recall a big deal about it at Segfest 2004 in FLA...

I wonder if it is still using them, and if so, why they were not in the article...

[JohnM]

Originally Posted by KSagal

I had thought that Lyon had segways in those bike kiosks as well. I recall a big deal about it at Segfest 2004 in FLA...

I wonder if it is still using them, and if so, why they were not in the article...

Karl, are you thinking of the Keolis Group 'Oxygen Station' rentals in Lille? Their website is still up. There had been talk of expanding the operation into Paris and other cities, but I can't find any follow-up.

[JohnM]

Originally Posted by drmarty

Do you have to wear Spandex?

I don't have to, therefor I don't. Do you?

[KSagal]

Originally Posted by JohnM

Karl, are you thinking of the Keolis Group 'Oxygen Station' rentals in Lille? Their website is still up. There had been talk of expanding the operation into Paris and other cities, but I can't find any follow-up.

JohnM, I believe you are correct. I must have confused the two French cities...

I do still wonder if there was a financial success with the Segways... I suppose one must also consider that this community bike thing has been tried before, with marginal success regionally, only to fall off again. I believe the bike (or segway variant) is a good idea, and people are willing to try when it is new, but then drift away from it...

I believe that those who use the service, and actually change their life style go out an buy a bike or seg, and those who only "try" it eventually go back to another form of transportation. Either way, once the new system becomes old hat, it fades from the collective memory...


On another note, a jogger on the sidewalk this morning accross the street from me was approaching, and staring at me... He was so involved in what I was doing instead of what he was doing, he ran right into a signpost. (Glanced off it, actually) The significant point is that he was wearing spandex pants...

Maybe we have been giving bikers a hard time without appropriate awareness that it is the tight knickers that are causing the attitude, not the attitude causing the wish for tight pants...

Maybe not....

[JohnM]

Karl: Having never worn tight knickers or collided with a signpost, I have no idea of what you are talking about. (Up for 107K on Saturday? Hanscom Field to Sterling and back.)

Getting back to 'Science and Technology', what makes this Cyclocity program different from all the earlier community bike ideas is its use of technology (and big corporate €€€) rather than altruism. Here's some more on the system's use of RFID

[wwhopper]

They always are out there with the good stuff about alternative transportation.

I read that article and thought of you John.

Do you know that we will be getting a bike station here, just like the euro ones. I am working on getting Segways in there. I am hoping one of our Segway Tour operators would get the contract to run it!

[JohnM]

From the NY Times:


October 14, 2007
Journeys | Paris

Finding Liberté on Two Wheels

By ERIC RAYMAN
MY plane landed at Charles de Gaulle airport. I took the RER train into Paris, dropped off my bag and, two hours after landing, I was riding a bicycle down the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
No, I'm not in training for the Tour de France and, no, I do not travel with a bicycle or for that matter any other sports paraphernalia. I was just participating in the latest craze that has swept Paris. I was on a Vélib.
Beginning on July 15, thousands of bicycles became available in Paris at hundreds of self-service docking stations installed around the city by J. C. Decaux, an outdoor advertising company. Anyone, even fresh-off-the-plane Americans, can stroll over, swipe a credit card and ride away on a sturdy, well-maintained three-speed bike, a “vélo” in French. Access to the bikes is available all of the time; it's liberating, as in “liberté,” so the “Vélib” was born.
Twelve weeks after the introduction of the Vélib, 15,000 bikes have been put into service at more than 1,000 stations. In that time Vélibiens (or Vélibeurs or perhaps Vélibistes) have checked out bicycles almost six million times and ridden them an estimated 7.5 million miles.
The Vélib system is simple. You swipe a credit card in a kiosk that is located beside a row of parked bikes and purchase a one-day, one-week or one-year subscription. (The system also takes a 150-euro deposit authorization to ensure the bike's safe return.) The machine prints out a card with your code number and you enter a personal password. You tap in this code and password to unlock a bike and ride off.
When you've reached your destination, you look for the nearest Vélib station, click your bike into an empty dock, watch a light change from yellow to green to acknowledge that you've returned your bike, and you're done. The first half-hour is free, after that the cost is 1 euro, or about $1.45, for the second half-hour, 2 euros for the third half-hour and 4 euros for each half hour after that.
The Métro stops running around 1 a.m., but the Vélib kiosks are open all night, solving one of the city's most frustrating transportation problems.
If out of curiosity you want to see how much you were charged, or just how far you've gone, tap in your code on the Vélib Web site, www.velib.paris.fr, and your Parisian biking history appears. There's a catch, of course. When I first tried to check out a Vélib, my Francophile wife asked, “Does your credit card have a puce?”
I knew what that meant. I had been to the Marché aux Puces. My card had no fleas. In Europe, however, a tiny computer chip, a puce, that contains security data about the card holder is embedded in the plastic and triggers the kiosk's release mechanism. Only some American cards have this smart chip, which is usually visible as a small gold or silver circuit board on the face of the card. Without a puce, I might not have been able to rent a Vélib.
In what might be seen as a turning point in the warming of Franco-American relations, a J. C. Decaux representative recently advised me that the kiosks now accept American Express cards issued in the United States as well as international JCB cards, even if the cards do not contain chips.
The French have embraced communal bike ownership, according to my informal survey of my fellow Vélibiens, as have other Europeans. A culture of Vélibistes is emerging. The camaraderie — a French word that seems to have been invented in anticipation of this new cult — among the riders is entrancing. Riders advise one another on where to find the nearest Vélib docking station, where to park if one is full, and how to find the best routes around the city. When they speak of Vélibs, Parisians smile, even those like a waiter who admitted not having ridden one.
Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, has just declared his intention to run for re-election, and the French newspapers, which are known to mix their opinions with their news to a degree that The New York Post would envy, have already pronounced him unbeatable.
And why not? To explore Paris by foot, by Métro or by taxi is not like embracing it on a bicycle. As I peddled around the glass pyramid at the Louvre, I was struck by the strobelike reflections from the royal buildings around it. Then I swung over the Pont du Carrousel and stole a glance at the ripples of light shimmering along the Seine in the shape of the arches of the Pont Neuf. I turned on the Boulevard Saint-Michel and discovered to my mild distress that it was a long climb. I heard the delighted laughter of a young Frenchwoman on her Vélib schussing by in the opposite direction.
There are, of course, the fossil fuel vehicles to contend with. Trying to cross the Place de la Concorde, I was dizzy just looking at the kaleidoscope of cars and tour buses. I felt like the young chef Linguini on his bicycle in the movie “Ratatouille.” But there are also well-marked bike lanes along many streets. Bicyclists share some of these lanes with buses and taxis, which at first seemed to me to be a dangerous combination, but as I raced along them I became more comfortable with my lane. Bus and cab drivers are professionals, at least, and, particularly at night, are much more likely to be sober than those in the adjacent lanes.
A helmet is rarely seen on any Parisian bicyclist. I asked an American friend living in Paris about the bareheaded cyclists. “Just wait,” he said, “until the first reports of accidents come out. In the fall when it's cold and slippery and business traffic really picks up, it's going to be a disaster. It will be the Waterloo of the Vélibs.”
I'm not so sure.
The Vélibs are solid road bikes with wide wheels and fenders, which keep your cuffs out of the chains. The bikes have baskets and kickstands. They are not designed for the Spandex racing crowd. Riders must follow the rules of the road. No running red lights. No riding on sidewalks.
Are accidents going to derail this emerging bicycle city? The French gave us another word for it. Insouciance. I asked a petite middle-age woman with short curly hair, the image of Edith Piaf, whether she ever wore a helmet. As she tapped in her code, she smiled at me, “Pas encore.” Not yet, she said.
VISITOR INFORMATION
The bikes are one-size-fits-all, with adjustable seats. Children under 14 are not allowed to use the bikes. Maps showing the locations of the Vélib stations throughout Paris are available for free at the mairie, or city hall, in each of Paris's 20 arrondissements
Daily and weekly Vélib subscriptions are sold at the kiosks; annual subscriptions are also available online at www.velib.paris.fr. The site has other useful information about the program, only some of which is available in English.
A Decaux representative said a plan to sell shorter term passes in locations like hotels in order to make rentals more convenient for tourists is under consideration.