So, has anyone who reads the blog used the new Velib system in Paris yet? A new layer of public transport has been rolled out (yes, I know) onto the streets of Paris, as of last Sunday (July 15th). The Bicycle. A publicly funded scheme (familiar to some from elsewhere, such as Lyon and Amsterdam (?), if memory serves) called “Velib” where there are special bike racks all over the city. One of the (charmingly European-looking) bikes is pictured on the right. From a BBC story by Emma-Jane Kirby:
The local authority in Paris has deposited 20,000 heavy-duty bicycles in 750 or so special racks around the city and anyone who wants one simply swipes his or her ordinary travel card and pedals off wherever they want to go.
The bike does not have to be returned to the same pick-up point – you can take a bike from a rack near the Eiffel Tower, cycle to the Pantheon and leave it in the nearest Velib stand there.
This sounds great, from my point of view, you’ll not be surprised to learn! I’m finding it hard to see a downside here at all. A bit more:
The Velib scheme is aimed at people who are making short journeys.
The first half hour of pedalling time is absolutely free but, if you fail to return the bike after 30 minutes, you get charged an extra euro and the penalties go up the later you are.
(So European… penalties. They could not find another, more positive word?)
The Velib website is here. And of course it is only in French. What did you expect? (Actually, it is rather entertaining to read, all the same, since it is mostly easy-to-guess French, and knowing the context helps.)
I can’t see what’s stopping such a system from being introduced in cities in America. I think that we should start with….. Los Angeles, of course! It is one of the cities that needs it most, and it is one of the easiest places to cycle. At this point, the usual things will be pointed out:
“Cycling in traffic is a bad, dangerous thing.” Not necessarily. There’s so much to say about this, and much has been said. See an earlier post (or two) with links, here here. Most of the claims of danger are made out of ignorance, and over-simplification, frankly. In some of the stories about the Velib system, people are pointing to all their favourite stories about people getting killed by lorries, and the like. All terrible, sure, but where are all the stories about people who were killed in cars that same day, or all the people who cycled that day for whom there were no accidents at all? On a more personal level, another advantage of LA is how easy it is to find a route to where you are going by using side streets that there are few or no cars on at all. The people I know who say things about how dangerous it is to cycle in LA are always thinking of cycling along the same streets they drive on. This is due to lack of local knowledge. Most drivers just don’t know the streets. For short journeys especially, people will be able to get around on these bikes without much contact with traffic, if they choose carefully. The few times you might have to go on a major bit of road you’re not confident of – just get off the bike and walk it for a stretch (or cycle on the sidewalk – hardly anybody’s using them anyway!)
“The bikes will all be stolen.” Not necessarily. It seems that the racks have some security (I don’t know how much though), and also the bike is tied to your travel card’s id, so I presume it gives you an incentive to make sure it is returned and locked into a rack at your destination. Frankly. it’s not clear to me how bad it would be if some were stolen anyway. It is not that they are being stolen and hidden away. People will steal them and ride them… instead of driving. This is the point, right?
Now let’s see. I would start with Downtown LA, Hollywood, and West Hollywood, and the Miracle Mile and Fairfax areas, with my eye on combined use for tourists and locals alike. High visibility combined with high density to get the scheme going, so that people can see how useful a service it can be when combined with the numerous buses and the subway. After a year or so, extend it out, going South, East, and so forth.
So, who’s coming with me to the Mayor’s office to suggest the idea?
-cvj
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Hi,
I just wanted to mention that the Lyon’s official web site for Velov is also available in English (you know, the English flag at the top right of the screen…)
http://www.velov.grandlyon.com/Index.1.0.html?&no_cache=1&L=1
As for the Paris Velib official site, it is also (partially) available in English, once you have selected ‘English’ (or ‘Espanol’) from the ‘Autres langues’ scroll-down list, in the top right section of the display. They would probably be better putting self-explanatory icons…
http://www.en.velib.paris.fr/
Regards
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Ah, that reminds me… I have an update on the Paris situation to report on. Later.
Thanks!
-cvj
Thought you’d enjoy this: Bikes in Amsterdam.
Wow! Thanks for the report. It sounds fantastic. I’m looking forward to trying it myself. I do hope other cities take up the scheme…..
Best,
-cvj
Well, after a couple of weeks that the system is in place I think it is a complete success. I have used it once and it is very fast and convenient. There are even (google) maps on the web to check in advance the availability of bikes and of empty drop-off spots at every station.
People seem to enjoy it a lot and it’s not unusual to see lines forming in front of one of the highly-computerized kiosk. Let’s see how it will go during the winter.
One correction. though: the system is not free, because you need to purchase a one-day card (for 1 euro) or a 1 year card (for 29 euros) to be allowed to pick up the bike. After that, the first 1/2 hour is free and `penalties’ start for a longer renting time. In Lyon, as far as I remember, it is instead completely free.
Hi Clifford, I am in Bern for an ISSI (=International Space Sciences Institute) workshop this week, and I see that they have the same free bicycle system too. If the weather was better, I might be interested to try it out.
(With this swiss-german keyboard, you would not believe how difficult that sentence was to type…) Greetings from a beautiful but very rainy place, Amara
Yes, we have had such a system in Copenhagen for years. In fact, Clinton got one of the citybikes as a present (“Citybike 1”) when he was here as a president.
The bikes are not particularly nice: they weight about 20 kg precisely to make them unattractive for thieves and to make them sturdy enough to take the punishment from vandals.
They are indeed checked and repaired continuously, The project uses labour from people who are otherwise out of work.
I’ve only ever used them one or two times because they aren’t all that nice (they are heavy and don’t drive well; there seems to be too much friction somewhere) and they are only allowed within a zone in central Copenhagen that is so small that I’d personally rather walk. But I don’t mind 45 minute walks 😉
I don’t know how much of a success it really is. It is probably mostly a nicety for tourists and visitors from other parts of the country. And it’s good publicity, of course.
What is a success, though, is the miles after miles of bike tracks on both sides of most major roads and many minor streets too here. Either the tracks are separated from the car lanes by being slightly elevated with a curb (and too small for cars to drive on) or they are painted blue (mostly used in where one street crosses another).
I’ve seen this system in many European cities, in most cases it worked for a while and afterwards they were just stolen. The solution was to make them very heavy and distinguishable and hence uncomfortable. However, the existence of GPS has simplified this much in modern times. About cities with a lot of bike traffic, they are not always ready for it (like Cambridge or even London!) and still people uses them. In other places like Spain or Italy where it would be very easy to use bikes because of the weather and the “flatness” of the land people don’t use them. My conclusion is that it is really a mystery to me why people use bikes in some places and not in others. The thing about bikes being stolen is not an excuse. Even in Holland the black market of bikes is huge and you have to lock yours with 3 different locks if you don’t want to get your wheels stolen etc and still, people use them!
I think there was a similar scheme in Cambridge some years ago, but it failed as the cycles were just stolen!
So Will…. shall we start the campaign?
-cvj
I was so hoping the bikes would be available when my wife and I were in Paris in May. Oh well, all the more reason to go back.
Well… you fix em. They get returned to camp and tested out and repaired periodically, as part of maintaining your public transport system. Must be the case that somebody tests whether there are brakes from time to time, right? Or do you sign a disclaimer when you get on it that it is at your own risk whether you can stop at the traffic signs or not…. (I don’t know the answer to this…)
-cvj
Amsterdam has no free bikes as far as I know… unless you seriously want to break the law 🙂
However, Copenhagen does! My own experience with these things is that they quite quickly get slightly to severely broken. A good idea in theory…
R
Oops. I meant Lyon when I said Nice, in the above. Thanks! (corrected.)
-cvj
The Velib was implemented in Paris because it proved very useful in Lyon. In Lyon it’s been working for two years now, you can also check the Lyon’s velov site (in French !).