There they go again, burying poor old Vélib. (Hey New York Times, read World Streets.)

The New York Times is generally doing a yeoman's job of providing useful investigative coverage and commentary on the environment-climate-new mobility front. And for that we all are most grateful. However in this tough game no one goes ten for ten at bat, and in this article today on Vélib they have really missed the ball. Guess we have to be a bit careful concerning about what we read in the paper (Streets included, of course)

Before you dig into their piece however, let me draw a handful of earlier reports on just this which are a lot closer to having their facts straight. (And by the time that you get to the Time's Halloween piece below, you surely have to wonder what the fuss is all these months later. Strike three on this one. But you will have plenty more Times at bat.)

From Le Parisien – 9 February 2009
Les Vélib' décimés par le vandalisme - http://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/les-velib-decimes-par-le-vandalisme-09-02-2009-404833.php_ (Strike 1)

From Streetsblog – 12 February 2009
Reports of Vélib demise greatly exaggerated, by Ben Fried.
http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demise-greatly-exaggerated/

From World Streets:
Reports of Vélib demise greatly exaggerated – 12 February 2009 http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2009/02/reports-of-velibs-demise-greatly.html

The End of City Bikes: Vandalism, Theft and the End of the World" – 19 February 2009 -http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/WorldCityBike/message/627 (New Mobility's World City Bike Forum)

Happy Birthday Vélib' (Oh dear, what's wrong with you?) – 26 June 2009 http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2009/06/happy-birthday-velib-oh-dear-whats.html

Happy Birthday Vélib': Now you are two – 15 July 2009
http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2009/07/happy-birthday-velib-now-you-are-two.html

------------------------------
And now, from our second favorite English-language daily, The New York Times

October 31, 2009 – Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/europe/31bikes.html?ref=europe

French Ideal of Bicycle-Sharing Meets Reality

By Steven Erlanger and Maïa De La Baume

PARIS — Just as Le Corbusier’s white cruciform towers once excited visions of the industrial-age city of the future, so Vélib’, Paris’s bicycle rental system, inspired a new urban ethos for the era of climate change.
Residents here can rent a sturdy bicycle from hundreds of public stations and pedal to their destinations, an inexpensive, healthy and low-carbon alternative to hopping in a car or bus.

But this latest French utopia has met a prosaic reality: Many of the specially designed bikes, which cost $3,500 each, are showing up on black markets in Eastern Europe and northern Africa. Many others are being spirited away for urban joy rides, then ditched by roadsides, their wheels bent and tires stripped.

With 80 percent of the initial 20,600 bicycles stolen or damaged, the program’s organizers have had to hire several hundred people just to fix them. And along with the dent in the city-subsidized budget has been a blow to the Parisian psyche.

“The symbol of a fixed-up, eco-friendly city has become a new source for criminality,” Le Monde mourned in an editorial over the summer. “The Vélib’ was aimed at civilizing city travel. It has increased incivilities.”

The heavy, sandy-bronze Vélib’ bicycles are seen as an accoutrement of the “bobos,” or “bourgeois-bohèmes,” the trendy urban middle class, and they stir resentment and covetousness. They are often being vandalized in a socially divided Paris by resentful, angry or anarchic youth, the police and sociologists say.

Bruno Marzloff, a sociologist who specializes in transportation, said, “One must relate this to other incivilities, and especially the burning of cars,” referring to gangs of immigrant youths burning cars during riots in the suburbs in 2005.

He said he believed there was social revolt behind Vélib’ vandalism, especially for suburban residents, many of them poor immigrants who feel excluded from the glamorous side of Paris.

“It is an outcry, a form of rebellion; this violence is not gratuitous,” Mr. Marzloff said. “There is an element of negligence that means, ‘We don’t have the right to mobility like other people, to get to Paris it’s a huge pain, we don’t have cars, and when we do, it’s too expensive and too far.’ ”

Used mainly for commuting in the urban core of the city, the Vélib’ program is by many measures a success. After swiping a credit card for a deposit at an electronic docking station, a rider pays one euro per day, or 29 euros (about $43) for an annual pass, for unlimited access to the bikes for 30-minute periods that can be extended for a small fee.

Daily use averages 50,000 to 150,000 trips, depending on the season, and the bicycles have proved to be a hit with tourists, who help power the economy.

But the extra-solid construction and electronic docks mean the bikes, made in Hungary, are expensive, and not everyone shares the spirit of joint public property promoted by Paris’s Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë.

“We miscalculated the damage and the theft,” said Albert Asséraf, director of strategy, research and marketing at JCDecaux, the outdoor-advertising company that is a major financer and organizer of the project. “But we had no reference point in the world for this kind of initiative.”

At least 8,000 bikes have been stolen and 8,000 damaged so badly that they had to be replaced — nearly 80 percent of the initial stock, Mr. Asséraf said.

JCDecaux must repair some 1,500 bicycles a day. The company maintains 10 repair shops and a workshop on a boat that moves up and down the Seine.

JCDecaux reinforced the bicycles’ chains and baskets and added better theft protection, strengthening the mechanisms that attach them to the electronic parking docks, since an incompletely secured bike is much easier to steal. But the damage and theft continued.

“We made the bike stronger, ran ad campaigns against vandalism and tried to better inform people on the Web,” Mr. Asséraf said. But “the real solution is just individual respect.”

In 2008 , the number of infractions related to Vélib’ vandalism rose 54 percent, according to the Paris police.

“We found many stolen Vélib’s in Paris’s troubled neighborhoods,” said Marie Lajus, a spokeswoman for the police. “It’s not profit-making delinquency, but rather young boys, especially from the suburbs, consider the Vélib’ an object that has no value.”

Sometimes the bikes are also victims of good old adolescent anarchic fun. These attitudes are expressed by the “freeriders,” and a bicycle forum, where a mock poll asks riders whether the Vélib’ can do wheelies, go down stairs and make decent skid marks.

It is commonplace now to see the bikes at docking stations in Paris with flat tires, punctured wheels or missing baskets. Some Vélib’s have been found hanging from lampposts, dumped in the Seine, used on the streets of Bucharest or resting in shipping containers on their way to North Africa. Some are simply appropriated and repainted.

Finding a decent one is now something of an urban treasure hunt. Géraldine Bernard, 31, of Paris rides a Vélib’ to work every day but admits having difficulties lately finding functioning bikes.

“It’s a very clever initiative to improve people’s lives, but it’s not a complete success,” she said.

“For a regular user like me, it generates a lot of frustration,” she said. “It’s a reflection of the violence of our society and it’s outrageous: the Vélib’ is a public good but there is no civic feeling related to it.”

Still, with more than 63 million rentals since the program was begun in mid-2007, the Vélib’ is an established part of Parisian life, and the program has been extended to provide 4,000 Vélib’s in 29 towns on the city’s edges.

So despite the increasing costs, Paris and JCDecaux are pressing on. The company invested about $140 million to set up the system and provides a yearly fee of about $5.5 million to Paris, which also gets rental fees for the bikes. In return, the company’s 10-year contract allows it to put up 1,628 billboards that it can rent.

Although JCDecaux will not discuss money figures, the expected date for profitability has been set back. But the City of Paris has agreed to pay JCDecaux about $600 for each stolen or irreparably damaged bike if the number exceeds 4 percent of the fleet, which it clearly does.

In an unsuccessful effort to stop vandalism, Paris began an advertising campaign this summer. Posters showed a cartoon Vélib’ being roughed up by a thug. The caption read: “It’s easy to beat up a Vélib’, it can’t defend itself. Vélib’ belongs to you, protect it!”

# # #

Some on-street fact checking:

So dear reader, to give you a whiff of the on-street reality of Vélib on this beautiful Fall day, I went out to do a little informal field work/fact checking early this morning. I visited half a dozen of the stations in the area indicated in the following map (which by the way you can use yourselves to check out station and bike status at http://www.parisavelo.net/). For a total of about 130 parking slots, I counted 41 parked bikes, 34 of which ready to go ,and the reminder with what appear to be some minor adjustments that the technicians should be able to handle readily and right on the spot (at least most of them).



As a daily user of Vélib, what can I say but that it works and that JCDecaux continues to do a sufficiently good job of keeping them on the street, such that a good part of the people I know are regular users. (What JCD cannot fix though, is that city traffic, despite all that has been done with over 400 Kms of pretty safe cycling provision, is such that really only confirmed cyclists should be trying this. But for us – and there are now a couple of hundred thousand regular users – it's a snap.)

Here are three sample stations from my morning trip.







To conclude:
Our friends at the Times have a lot of the standard numbers right (we envy them bitterly their fact checkers), but somehow once again they have dug up the fantastic number that a single Vélib cost $3,500. Who gave them that number? One does have to wonder why they have decided to reheat this old chestnut. Perhaps it's a Halloween story. Sure, that must be it. Happy Halloween.

On the other hand, I have to be perfectly frank with you: I have yet to try one in Bucharest, Marrakesh or in the Seine. But if you have, please, World Streets would like to hear from you.

Eric Britton
Editor

PS. And oh yes, despite all the kvetching, we really do love you NYT and want you to hang in there with your generally exemplary reporting. No one goes ten for ten in the Majors.

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"Pedal Power Doc: Interview with Eric Britton": Sharing as a sustainability strategy - Part I

A thirty second video with a panting "Pedal Power Doc" talking as he rides about sharing as a vital building block of anyone's viable 21st century sustainability strategy. ("You can't get there without it.")

This is a brief extract from the full length film produced by Cogent Benger for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, programmed on 24 September 2009 and soon available on line from the CBC.

* Click here for 30 second video - http://www.vimeo.com/6856553

* The full length program is presently available at http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/Doc_Zone/ID=1275907713 (Canada only for now, but supposed to become available shortly).
* In the meantime for an 8 minute trailer click to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqUoJFLsZKI.

Co-director’s notes by Christopher Sumpton

The excerpts show a little of Paris’ Velib’, featuring none other than World Streets Managing Editor, Eric Britton, as well as the origins of the White Bike with Luud Schimmelpennink in Amsterdam; a little of the bike lane scene in New York, and the new public bike system in Montreal (Bixi).

We did a quick tour of six cities, a miniscule slice of the global cycling picture, and along the way, two things were apparent: one, that cycling is bubbling up to the surface in conversations everywhere, and two, that car culture is very resilient and tremendous creativity will be needed for change to happen. My hope is that the film adds to public discussion and awareness of the issues.


The following are some thoughts from the filmmaking process.

Doing a film on cycling didn’t appear to be an “edgy” prospect. More like putting on a pair of comfortable slippers. After all, bicycles are the friendliest form of transport, besides being non-polluting and way up on the environmentally correct scale. For most people they also represent pleasant memories of childhood. They’re a rite of passage, a much-photographed milestone in growing up that’s shared between parent and child.

But it turns out that bicycles are the focus of heated debate and civic action. In the film we call the bicycle “revolution” a civil rights movement. The rights of cyclists might be compared to the rights of non-smokers, in the way that a tipping point is being reached and long-standing cultural assumptions (in this case that the roads belong to motorists) are suddenly overturned.

I think the car vs. bike battle is just getting under way. What’s dawning on many people, including civic planners and politicians, is that bicycles are important to the future of the city. Sustainability, livability, accessibility are the words being bandied about at conferences and symposia. It’s about how to ensure cities don’t strangle themselves on traffic and spawn a citizenry alienated from each other by the isolation of automobile-dictated sprawl.

It’s not really about bikes, it’s about the quality of life in the city. As cities become ever bigger and denser, it’s about how to make them suitable for people to interact with each other in public spaces, in other words roadways, sidewalks, squares, plazas, parks. It’s just that bicycling fits in with all that rather well.

The charm of the bicycle also comes from a retro thrill. Bicycles are a rare example of technological progress moving backward. The bicycle as we know it has been around since the advent of the “safety bicycle” in the early 1890’s: a low-mount structure on wheels of equal size, a chain-driven rear wheel and inflatable rubber tires. A huge wave of people took up mechanized travel at the time, several decades before the automobile age began.

This is the second wave. In this time where the technology we use (who knows how to fix a broken computer?) is increasingly beyond our understanding, the workings of the bicycle are visible and accessible. Simple and cheap, what a durable concept. The bike is the right thing at the right time. Compared to driving a car, its endlessly flexible: now I’m a fast-moving vehicle among other vehicles on the road, now I’m a pedestrian walking my bike down the sidewalk, now I’m riding through a park, now I’m tying up right outside a building where there’s no car parking for miles.

Why do cyclists take it all so personally? Because the bicycle is like a prosthetic device, an extension of our limbs. The power comes from the rider, not the thing ridden. As a method of transport, that’s unique. Not horsepower, not steam, not the electric tram, not the auto engine, but muscle melded to mechanics. And it’s inherently precarious: the whole enterprise takes alertness and attention (consciously or not) to keep from falling off. Plus you’re exposed to the world, putting your flesh and blood on the line.

So the doing the film was a bit like turning over a hornets’ nest. Passions are up, and everyone has an opinion about whether cycling is a good thing or a plague on the roads.

# # #

Christopher Sumpton is a Toronto-based documentary filmmaker who for the past ten years has produced films ranging from biography (Paul Anka, Jim Carrey) to wildlife (wolverines, sea otters) to social issues (violent video games, pornography). An abiding interest in sustainability led to his most recent film PEDAL POWER, about the growing “bicycle revolution”.

Christopher Sumpton, cas@cogentbenger.com
- www.cogentbenger.com
Toronto, Canada

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Pedal Power (to the People)

Pedal Power, a new Canadian film about the phenomenal growth of city cycling produced by a Cogent/Benger Productions team under the direction of Christopher Sumpton and will be viewed for the first time today, September 24th, on national television in Canada (http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/ , 8pm). Repeating:Friday September 25, 2009 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld.


For the moment, the full film is available only in Canada on TV and internet streaming via the CBC. But hang in there: we will let you know when it becomes available worldwide. In the meantime, some excerpts can be seen on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqUoJFLsZKI(8 minutes) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX3p7EtEEds (30 second clip on sharing]. There is also a set of 6 short clips available at /u> http://www.cogentbenger.com/docs/pedalpower/video.php



Co-director’s notes by Christopher Sumpton

The excerpts show a little of Paris’ Velib’, featuring none other than World Streets Managing Editor, Eric Britton, as well as the origins of the White Bike with Luud Schimmelpennink in Amsterdam; a little of the bike lane scene in New York, and the new public bike system in Montreal (Bixi).

We did a quick tour of six cities, a miniscule slice of the global cycling picture, and along the way, two things were apparent: one, that cycling is bubbling up to the surface in conversations everywhere, and two, that car culture is very resilient and tremendous creativity will be needed for change to happen. My hope is that the film adds to public discussion and awareness of the issues.

The following are some thoughts from the filmmaking process.

Doing a film on cycling didn’t appear to be an “edgy” prospect. More like putting on a pair of comfortable slippers. After all, bicycles are the friendliest form of transport, besides being non-polluting and way up on the environmentally correct scale. For most people they also represent pleasant memories of childhood. They’re a rite of passage, a much-photographed milestone in growing up that’s shared between parent and child.

But it turns out that bicycles are the focus of heated debate and civic action. In the film we call the bicycle “revolution” a civil rights movement. The rights of cyclists might be compared to the rights of non-smokers, in the way that a tipping point is being reached and long-standing cultural assumptions (in this case that the roads belong to motorists) are suddenly overturned.

I think the car vs. bike battle is just getting under way. What’s dawning on many people, including civic planners and politicians, is that bicycles are important to the future of the city. Sustainability, livability, accessibility are the words being bandied about at conferences and symposia. It’s about how to ensure cities don’t strangle themselves on traffic and spawn a citizenry alienated from each other by the isolation of automobile-dictated sprawl.

It’s not really about bikes, it’s about the quality of life in the city. As cities become ever bigger and denser, it’s about how to make them suitable for people to interact with each other in public spaces, in other words roadways, sidewalks, squares, plazas, parks. It’s just that bicycling fits in with all that rather well.

The charm of the bicycle also comes from a retro thrill. Bicycles are a rare example of technological progress moving backward. The bicycle as we know it has been around since the advent of the “safety bicycle” in the early 1890’s: a low-mount structure on wheels of equal size, a chain-driven rear wheel and inflatable rubber tires. A huge wave of people took up mechanized travel at the time, several decades before the automobile age began.

This is the second wave. In this time where the technology we use (who knows how to fix a broken computer?) is increasingly beyond our understanding, the workings of the bicycle are visible and accessible. Simple and cheap, what a durable concept. The bike is the right thing at the right time. Compared to driving a car, its endlessly flexible: now I’m a fast-moving vehicle among other vehicles on the road, now I’m a pedestrian walking my bike down the sidewalk, now I’m riding through a park, now I’m tying up right outside a building where there’s no car parking for miles.

Why do cyclists take it all so personally? Because the bicycle is like a prosthetic device, an extension of our limbs. The power comes from the rider, not the thing ridden. As a method of transport, that’s unique. Not horsepower, not steam, not the electric tram, not the auto engine, but muscle melded to mechanics. And it’s inherently precarious: the whole enterprise takes alertness and attention (consciously or not) to keep from falling off. Plus you’re exposed to the world, putting your flesh and blood on the line.

So the doing the film was a bit like turning over a hornets’ nest. Passions are up, and everyone has an opinion about whether cycling is a good thing or a plague on the roads.

# # #

Christopher Sumpton is a Toronto-based documentary filmmaker who for the past ten years has produced films ranging from biography (Paul Anka, Jim Carrey) to wildlife (wolverines, sea otters) to social issues (violent video games, pornography). An abiding interest in sustainability led to his most recent film PEDAL POWER, about the growing “bicycle revolution”.

Christopher Sumpton, cas@cogentbenger.com
- www.cogentbenger.com
Toronto, Canada

--> Read on:

Public Bikes – How big a system? And why?

One of the complaints currently being voiced in the UK press about the new public bike start-up in the city of Bristol is that it is too small, insufficiently visible and generally hard to get at – and that it thus fails to achieve the level of massive use that is necessary if what you want is a city transformation project. Is that what your public bicycle project is supposed to do? Transform your city?

It can you know. Not all by itself of course but if you put it together with a carefully thought out integrated package of new mobility measures you can create a powerful component of the transformational process. (For background on the Bristol project see our 23 July piece on this “Thoughts on a shared bike project in the UK: Part I” at http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2009/07/shared-bike-project-in-uk-part-i.html for background.)

For some useful perspective on this you may want to check out the example of Paris and the Vélib' through a handful of short videos, plus one full length TV documentary, all of which can be accessed here with a single click.

* A 30 second trailer announcing the PBS documentary on Vélo Liberté and the Greening of Paris – at http://www.pbs.org/e2/transport.html

* 3 minute, interesting because it provides some discussion of why a big ambitious project was for the team behind the project in Paris’s’ City Hall was the way to go for Paris - same link, just below the above.

* An extended 6 minute version which hones in on the relationship between bikesharing and carsharing (lesson: proceed with caution, but be sure to proceed!) - at http://blip.tv/play/AcvUegA

* The full half hour PBS documentary can be viewed (small screen but entirely viewable) if you click to http://www.e2-series.com/, click Webcast, then Paris.

* Words from a satisfied user, from Vélo Liberté.

Copies of the DVD of the full e² transport series can be obtained for $25.00 from the Public Broadcasting System bookshop via http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=3333834&cp=&sr=1&kw=paris&origkw=paris&pg=2&parentPage=search#Details

Additionally, if you want another perspective on Vélib, have a look at the enjoyable Streetfilms piece: Vélib' – The Greening of Paris - http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/velib (8 minutes). And the Perils for Pedestrians interview here at http://blip.tv/file/2363567/.

Brainfood from Paris. Bon appétit!

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Perils for Pedestrians comes to Paris to learn about Vélib

Perils for Pedestrians is a monthly cable TV program dedicated to improving the quality of the pedestrian environment in the US and Canada. Perils' director John Z. Wetmore came to Paris to interview some of the locals to get their views on bicycles, public space, and Vélib' for a series for North American cable television.

- John Z. Wetmore reporting from Paris

Wetmore to Britton on Vélib'
One of these looks straight at Vélib' and captures a 15 minute dialogue with the editor of World Streets. You can pick up Mr. Wetmore's questions and their exchange by clicking here to http://blip.tv/file/2363567/. (Interestingly enough, while this program was shot here in Paris last winter it actually arrived here on the day of Velib's second anniversary - see "Happy birthday Vélib', now you are two".)

The two full length programs which you can access directly from here include:

Perils for Pedestrians - Episode 157: Paris 1 and 2 http://blip.tv/file/2359879

1. Perils travels to Paris to talk with Jean Paul Lechevalier about walking in Paris and their public interest group, Les Droits du Piéton (The Rights of Pedestrians), active for many years here in Paris and in many other parts of France through their national association.

Contact:
Les Droits du Piéton - http://www.pietons.org
Maison des Associations du 1er Arrondissement
Forum des Halles - Cidex N° 209
75045 Paris cedex 1e
Tel/Fax : 01 43 35 08 04 pieton@wanadoo.fr

2. Perils looks at the Vélib' public bicycle system in Paris with Eric Britton of New Mobility Partnerships and World Streets (above).


Episode 158: Paris 3 and 4 - http://blip.tv/file/2361252/

3. Perils talks with two young cyclists to get their views on day to day cycling in Paris.

4. Perils talks with Norma Mashaal of "MDB - Mieux se Déplacer à Bicyclette" ("Better to Move around by Bicycle"), Paris's oldest and most active cycling group to get the big picture on cycling in the City of Light. (Executive summary: The success of Vélib' was not in fact born in one day.)

Contact:
MDB - Mieux se Déplacer à Bicyclette. http://mdb-idf.org
32 rue Raymond Losserand, 75014 PARIS
Tél : 01 43 20 26 02 courrier@mdb-idf.org

Both episodes will be screened on The Universityhouse Channel in the U.S. on July 21 and 28. Check your local station schedule for exact times.

# # #

Editor's comment:

In the context of Vélib' and the more general "Greening of Paris" program behind it and many of the other mobility innovations that are on-going here, how many times have we received radio, television, and film teams from around the world who come to Paris to meet, observe, interview, and try out for themselves some of the new mobility modes which are together changing the face of this city? In the last two years alone we have shaken the hands, looked in the eyes and tried to answer the questions of filmmakers and reporters from places as far away as India, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Pakistan, Australia, and the United States.

It is a consistent pleasure to receive and work with them. It is also a real learning process for us each time. And all this has led to a growing inventory of media almost all of which are freely available to anyone on the planet with a single click. (For a working guide to many of these that we have participated in, let us point you to www.media.newmobility.org.)

Image after image, program after program, film after film, all of this work is slowly coming together to get the word out. Each project has its own special touch. Nothing is redundant since there is a huge and needful world out there and these are new messages.

Do you have an idea for a video, podcast, radio or television program on any of the topics which we are working hard to cover under World Streets? If so, do not hesitate to get in touch. One by one, step after step, we will together get the message out.

Related New Mobility media:

* PBS prime time documentary (Dec. 2008), now available at http://www.e2-series.com/, click Webcast, then Paris.

* Vélib – The Greening of Paris - http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/velib (8 minutes)

* From bikeshare to carshare (Not so fast!) - http://blip.tv/play/AcvUegA (5 minutes)

* Rethinking Streets in Paris - http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/rethinking-streets-in-paris/ (6 minutes)

* Mobilien: Paris’ Version of Bus Rapid Transit - http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/mobilien/ (4 minutes)

* Vélib' cycles in Paris (7 Aug. 2007, 10 minutes) Interviews and images on the occasion of the opening of the Vélib' project in Paris. Cycling as a new form of urban public transport. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDBfwU6zni8

* Vélib' Cycles in Pune (12 Aug. 2007, 9 minutes) A Vélib' project in Indian cities. Is it possible? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLjT9g11y-4

* The Greening of Paris (Vol. 1) Draft of one part of a film under preparation in support of the Greening of Paris component of the New Mobility Agenda's program "Reinventing Transport in Cities". - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTHXawO-t0Y. (The full rushes (19 minutes) can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTHXawO-t0Y)

* Contested Streets A documentary produced by the New York City advocacy group Transportation Alternatives with
new footage of reclaimed streets in London, Copenhagen and Paris and features interviews with leading figures in NYC, London, Paris and Copenhagen. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF4Q2badOng

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The best public bike system in the world?

Adam Cooper, Canadian, on why Canada's BiXi is the best public bike system in the world

Watch out world, the city of Montreal is on the move: this time powered by pedals. The second largest city in Canada is now home to North America’s largest bike sharing program. The BIXI system (Bicycle + Taxi) is Canada’s first attempt at large scale bike sharing; and from my initial experiences I will say it is extremely well done, maybe even the best in the world.

Beginning in the summer of 2008, Stationnement de Montreal, the City’s parking authority, was mandated to design, build, operate and maintain a bike sharing system, by the Montreal City Council. Less than one year later (May 12, 2009) the BIXI program was up and running. Operated by a non-profit company (the Public Bike System Co.), BIXI provides 3000 Canadian designed and manufactured bicycles at 300 stations located across the core of Montreal.

There is no doubt that the BIXI system is a pioneer and that Montreal has raised the bar on bike sharing. BIXI utilizes the latest in technological advances to improve on bicycle sharing systems found around the world, featuring; wireless data transfers, solar powered docking stations and a touch screen interface based on the parking authority’s highly reliable pay terminals. BIXI bikes are fully aluminum and very comfortable to ride, featuring; integrated LED lighting in the frame, an internalized chain, adjustable seat height and proprietary parts to reduce the risk of theft. Additionally, BIXI engineers believe they have developed a better locking mechanism than exists on the market today, addressing many of the concerns currently coming out of Velib in Paris.


Not only do these advanced technologies make the system appealing in terms of their sustainability aspects, they also reduce the cost of installation; no data or power connections are required, meaning stations can be placed anywhere in the city and be up and running in approximately 30 minutes. This adds tremendous value to the BIXI system when comparing against existing bike share systems which require construction crews to dig up the street. This one change presents a real value for the BIXI system, as construction of stations in other programs such as Velib, can take up to one month.

Further adding to the BIXI appeal is the mobility and scalability of the system. The stations are modular, operating on a “plug and play” style of connection, with many options for station configuration (the only thing they can’t do is perfect circles). What this means is that program operators can adjust the location and capacity of the stations after the program has launched. The system can be reconfigured for large public events and stations not functioning at their maximum utility can be expanded or contracted to meet the supply and demand constraints.

Although BIXI is still in its infancy, there is no doubt in my mind that this technology will be exported to other cities in Canada and around the world. For the current BIXI subscribers this adds further value to the $78 annual membership fee, as their BIXI key will allow them access any BIXI system worldwide. The attempt by the Public Bike System Co. is to build a community around bike sharing where members can access BIXI in any city they travel to. Further adding to the community aspect of the technology is the fact that users can log into a website and track the number of kilometers they have travelled, the amount of gasoline they have saved and the amount of CO2 they have offset by choosing to cycle

If any of this sounds interesting to you, then get a hold of BIXI who will deliver the system, scaled to your needs in a turnkey fashion. The not for profit nature of the company means they are willing to work side by side with your community to develop a bike sharing system that fits your needs. Finally, public bicycles are actually public. The option to deliver a high quality 3rd (4th?) generation public bicycle system to your community, free from advertising and corporate interests finally exists. Vive la velorution!

- Adam is an M.A. Planning Candidate and Research Assistant at the TREK Program Centre of the University of British Colombia. He is working on a thesis on public bikes and is participating in the World Eyes on the Street peer network and watchout.

For more on BiXi:

BiXi Home page
BiXi Montreal
Bixi-Velo Facebook
Wikipedia. on Bixi
Article: Number 19 on Time Magazine Best Inventions of 2008
PriceTags on BiXi

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Happy Birthday Vélib’ (Oh dear, what’s wrong with you?)

Next month, on July 15th Paris will celebrate the second anniversary of the path-showing Vélib project. You have seen many different views from many corners of the planet about what is going on here: its perfection, its foibles, its extensions, and more recently news reports that it is about to go into the tank since there are no bikes left. With this in view, we thought we would celebrate this important anniversary with you here on Streets, with a series of visits and conversations in order to give you a State of the Vélib report as it gets ready to move into Year III. To set the stage, here you have our first Happy Birthday message.

Paris, 15 July 2008

Today is the first anniversary of the city of Paris’s highly innovative, much sung public bicycle project Vélib’, which as pretty much everyone by now knows is a contraction of the French words for bicycle (vélo) and liberty (liberté). Over this first year hundreds of thousands of Parisians and visitors have hopped on a Vélib’ and made something on the order of 26 million trips on the streets of this fair city, most of them paying nothing more than a modest subscription fee for what is otherwise a free trip.

There has been a great deal of media coverage and a large number of visitors - and visiting critics. As you can well imagine in a situation where all those people coming from so many places, with such different competences and with so many points of view, there are a wide range of views and opinions about the project, including its high points and shortcomings. These as you will see range wildly from the legitimate to the fanciful.

The purpose of this piece then is to provide you with a sort of Vélib’ FAQ, in which I have attempted to take note of the critical observations passed on through personal contacts, press articles, visiting delegations from a number of countries, newsgroups, blogs, e-mail commentaries, woman on the street interviews, etc., as well as daily use of the system myself. Basically then this is a kvetch or complaint list.

In the commentaries that follow I do not pretend to provide “scientific answers”, although in a number of cases the feedback you will find here does draw on polls, surveys and other more or less scientific compilations. But basically my specialty is pattern recognition -- and so what you see here is my attempt to spot the overall patterns and give you what I hope is a measure reaction to these complaints, questions and claims.

Finally, I want you to know that while I think Vélib’ is a very important project for many reasons, I do not wish to give the impression of defending any aspect of it. This is a new venture and one that is unique and highly innovational. It has many strong points, and things where further work and fine tuning is needed. This kind of open criticism openly discussed, a public critique, is what is needed both here in Paris. And possibly even more so back home if you are thinking about doing a “Vélib’’ of your own.

Now on with the show.

Eric Britton


Happy Birthday Vélib video
Before you dig in here let me invite you to have a look at a second Happy Birthday Vélib’ piece -- a video by the talented Elisabeth Press of StreetFilms in New York. Elisabeth spent a week in Paris researching her film, and spent enough time riding it to have a good understand of what works, and what works maybe a bit less well.

* Click here to view the 8-minute Happy Birthday video.

Thirty things that are terribly terribly wrong with Vélib’

1. The bikes are too heavy
They weigh 22 kg, roughly a third more than maybe your own bicycle. And sure! if your intention is to put it on your shoulder and carry it up five flights of stairs to your apartment, you’re absolutely right -- it’s real heavy. But the fact is that this cycle has been carefully designed in order to do the job that it needs to do. That extra weight turns out to be necessary to provide the full range of support and components necessary for it to do its job. And the necessary robustness -- bear in mind that little bike is going to be ridden by thousands of people of different weights, sizes, cycling skills, etc. over the year. And by and large when you are on the street and peddling away that weight is really no problem (though it can be a drag if you have a steep hill to climb, but you are there for the exercise anyway). In addition the weight and the careful balancing of the bicycle provides good stability, including on the cobblestone Streets which can be a little challenging (see below).

2. Paris is not doing enough to make the city safe for cycling
Let’s start by bearing in mind that until now there are very few cities in the world which are “safe enough”. Paris has doubled the number of safe cycling lanes and protection over the last five years, and is adding on the order or 40-50 km. of additional protection each year. In addition, there are the growing number of “slow speed’ projects which are reducing traffic speeds to 30 km/h, and in places, 15 km/h in an extended number of streets and zones. In addition, the city is pushing for a “Street Code” (as opposed to the national “road code” which is oriented to highways and high speed areas, which will among other things require that in the case of an incident the drivers of the heavier vehicles are required to prove their innocence– as opposed to the present practice which requires a proof of guilt (far harder to do). Bottom line: Paris is today a safe city for informed and prudent city cyclists. And it is getting safer all the time.

3. Bike lanes are inconsistent
There are two ways of looking at this. Starting from the pure Paris perspective: the streets and sidewalks widths and surfaces here vary enormously from place to place, meaning that it is out of the question to have the sort of unified cycle paths or lanes as will be seen, for example, in the better North American or other out of town leisure cycling projects. This means that there must be a wide variety of strategies for dealing with the opportunities and problems that arise when it comes to protecting cyclists in such radically different environments. So as you cycle Paris you will see a varied network consisting of painted lanes (which they do extremely well , I might add), longitudinal barriers separating bikes from motorized traffic, provision for one way cycling, a variety of ways of separating bikes from pedestrian traffic on sidewalks, careful signage, bike boxes, and more. There are also places in which you have to rough it out, share the road with the traffic. All of which is to say that this is above all a real world environment for “city cycling” and to do it well knowledge and experience helps.(Just like when you drive your Ferrari.)

If by contrast to Paris your city has been laid out with a uniform grid with wide streets and ample space for making a uniform sets of engineered cycle lanes, well go for it. But that will rarely be the case. So you will almost inevitably have to do as they have in Paris and use your noggin. Sorry.

4. Only for young healthy males
In Paris, something like 40% of all cyclists are female. And you will see plenty of older people on the streets, on Vélib’s or their own bikes. Moreover there is a strong trend – the more cyclists there are on the streets, the safer they become for cyclists. And as this happens, more women and older people will join the happy fray every day.

5. Paris drivers are aggressive and dangerous
More folklore than truth to this. This is a fairly common complaint of visitors who have myths in their mind about the French but who have not spent enough time in a bike on the road even in their own city. It is right to the extent that most people who are in temporary control of a couple of tons of hurtling steel and rubber, and in a hurry (and what driver is not?), such drivers and inevitably is going to constitute a menace to smaller, less visible vehicles, such as you or me on a bike. So, as long as drivers can speed, cycling is going to be a slightly risky venture.

But here in Paris if you spend enough time on the streets you will observe that drivers are being tamed. And the key to this is the greatly increased number of cyclists out on the streets today. The cyclists are de facto following the tried and true strategy: “occuper le terrain”, which can be loosely translated as “safety in numbers”. The more cyclists on the street, the safer it becomes. And that already is a strategy.

6. Can’t find a bike/parking slot:
This can be a problem, especially for people who are not accustomed to “working the system”. The odds are that if you try it enough there are going to be occasions when you can’t find a bike in the first (or second) station you go to. Or that if you are in a hurry and show up at your intended destination you may find it full. There are three strategic responses to this two-headed dilemma. The first is to wait. The second is to learn the system, in which event you just head like an arrow to the station you by experience know is more likely to offer what you are looking for (remember with 1451 stations in this small city (105 sq. km) you are unlikely to have to walk or peddle more than five minutes to get to the next station. Simplest of all, you can click button 4 on the Velib station monitor, and then you can with one more click (5) check out the status of all nearby stations for free bikes and parking slots. There are thousands of practiced users of Vélib’, and that’s what they do every day. (All while waiting for better times to come).

7: Can’t even get good information about bike/parking availability.
Yes you can, even if it is not yet perfect. You can if before your trip you check out the couple of web sites that provide you with this information with a single click. The one that I use daily is http://www.parisavelo.net/ (I never leave home without it.). There is also an ‘official” one from the city of Paris at http://www.en.velib.paris.fr/trouver_une_station, and another excellent one is at http://www.unvelovite.com/Velib/

Of course you are not always at your computer, so what can I tell you to help you avoid bike angst. Well, you will see that the map on each Vélib’ station does indeed show the nearest stations, but they do not (yet) provide information on their status. (This already exists in Lyons and there is every reason to think we will be seeing it in Paris.) There is also a still-clunky WAP 1 gizmo that you can use with your mobile phone for which you can find instructions at http://www.velib.paris.fr/actualites/decouvrez_velib/les_stations_velib_sur_votre_mobile. (I for one have never had the patience, but that’s just me.)

The final word on this is that the city and the operators are working on it and we are sure to see continuing improvements, both in Paris and in the other leading city projects. In the meantime, develop your knowledge by using it, and you will see that you will use it every day.

8. Many broken bikes at stations
By my own rough calculation, on average I encounter one bike with a problem per ten or so. In most cases the problem is immediately apparent: a loose chain, flat tire, problem with the steering alignment, maybe something with the seat, and more rarely other less visible problems. For a while there has been a fad to cut off the bike baskets but on the basis of daily visual inspection this fad seems to have calmed. If there is something wrong with your bike the etiquette is that when you leave it off or discover the problem, you crank the seat down and turn it in the opposite direction. Then the next person (and the staff) will know immediately. Mechanical problems come with the terrain, and once again point up why managements and maintenance are the keys to the success of any of these systems.


9. My bike doesn’t work! That probably because you failed to apply the 100% no-brainer start-up test of the regular user. You start by visually inspecting the bike for damage or malfunction. Then you pinch or kick both tires to verify air pressure, pick up the bike and spin the rear wheel, squeeze both brakes, and then adjust the seat to your size – all before flashing your smart card and checking it out. Now this does not guarantee 100% glitch free cycling, but it does 98% or better.

10. Velib’ is not “tourist friendly” – Some tourists credit cards cannot access bikes
Hey. Reality 1: The system is intended as daily transport for Parisians and not tourists (see below). All bank cards with smart chips work just fine, and Amex too. Otherwise no problem, you should most probably be renting a bike anyway.

11. Bikes are too expensive for tourists who want to use them to stroll through Paris
That’s quite right. If you keep it for an uninterrupted four hour stretch, for example, your bill will quickly run up to 19 Euros. That’s more than it would cast you for a full day if you rent it from a bike shop.

12. They are killing the bike retail business
Wrong. More cyclists on the street attract yet more cyclists. The number of people riding their own bikes has roughly doubled over this first year of Vélib’. And while some of these bikes have come out of the attic, others are coming new from the shops. The bike hire, purchase, and maintenance business is doing well in Paris. (But this did not happen by accident.)

13. The stations are not sufficiently visible to cyclists on the move
This is true. In other cities the stations are more visibly marked, but the Paris authorities decided to protect their built environment and not have aggressive signing or lighting of the stations. There is doubtless room for doing better, but the protection of the beauty of the city has to be a high priority.

14. Bus drivers are aggressive and threatening
I don’t observe this in my own cycling here. First of all the drivers are professionally trained, and those in particular who operate on the reserved lanes where cyclists share the right of way with buses and taxis proceed with great caution. I would offer that the onus by and large is on the cyclists (though the taxis drivers could do with better prepping) One nice touch you will see when you get into a bus lane here is that when the bus pulls up behind you to signal its presence, the drivers will ring a bicycle bell. Nice symbol and an agreeable way to share public space.

15 Vélib’ cyclists undisciplined and dangerous.
Performance is uneven here. While I observe that the Parisians by and large are safe cyclists (after all they know the terrain and are not just kidding around), the same is not always true of visitors who may, for lack of prudence or experience on the road, put themselves in the way of trouble. Both the city and the operator of the system are aware that increased efforts and information and education are called for. But it will be up to the tourists to do their part.

16. Vélib cyclists should be obliged to wear helmets
On the several occasions in which there have been accidents the media and some of the public suggest that helmets should be mandatory. Now, an ample amount of observation and work have been done on this subject such that it has been concluded by a majority of experts with knowledge of city cycling that this is something that should be vigorously encouraged but not mandated by law. Compulsory helmets would mean an end to city cycling as it is widely practiced today in the leading cycling cities and countries (See www.ecoplan.org/library/helmets.pdf for more on this).

17. No bikes at the top of hills
They do tend to accumulate at the base of the hills since many folks apparently don’t want to pedal or walk their Vélib’ up a mountain (of which there are none in Paris of course but there are inclines that can raise a sweat.) So if you are looking for a bike and unless a nice lot of fresh Vélib’s has just been delivered to your favorite hilltop station, you may want to walk to the base of the hill to find your steed. (That said, the operator and the city have recently come up with a scheme which provides some incentive for getting your bike up to the top f the hill

18. No rear view mirror on bikes
Right. And in my view there really should be, but this is not an easy call. In any event, part of being a good cyclist is to profit from your unhindered full field of vision, which also requires the ability to look behind both right and left. But then again, not all or tourists or all our new Vélib’ users may have that level of skill. (Moreover we have to bear in mind that one more piece of equipment may not be without its fair share of maintenance challenges.)

19. Vélib’ is not reducing car traffic and pollution.
It is, but the calculation is a subtle one and can be carried out really only at a basic conceptual level. As a rough rule of thumb, one survey showed that more than 10% of all trips were reported as substituting for car trips. Thus if there were 26 million Vélib’ trips performed over the year, for an average trip of 4-5 kms. I..e, more than 100 million (polluting cold start, center city) vehicle kms of which 10% or so are substituting for car trips. Ten million vehicle kms-plus is a number, after all.

Beyond that what we are seeing here is a process: as people start to cross over to non-car solutions for their local transport requirements, the car itself slowly begins to become redundant for many city dwellers. Public bicycles are an important part of this conversion process. More use of bikes, of public transportation, of taxis, rental cars. And finally you go over to carsharing and sell that old banger once and for all. Or hang on to it for as long as it makes sense for your out of town trips.

20. They only steal passengers from public transport carriers
This is interesting, and not entirely baseless. However the synergies are not altogether negative . In Paris a bit more than half of all Velib trips might otherwise have been taken by bus or metro . There are however two, and at time quite considerable advantages of this dynamic trade-off. First of all if the Vélib’ user voluntarily takes a bike, it’s because she thinks it is quicker and often more agreeable. And since the transit services of Paris, like may other cities, are often pushed to capacity and beyond, so in good weather at least the Vélib’ option provide better conditions of transit for all those hoping to find a seat on the bus, train or subway. Win-win, as some insist on saying.

21. Bikes take away parking spaces for cars
They sure do, but given that most of those cars carry only one person most of the time, this modal shift is a good thing not only for the city but also for local commerce. People who come into stores by bike or on foot, come more often and, studies show, tend to spend more money for higher quality produce. Not only that, the Vélib’ trip can in most cases in the city be quicker and bring the customer closer to the point of purchase.

22. Bikes steal street space from cars.
Yes, that’s right, and so they should. Public bikes need a bit of road space, and if they get what they need it has to be taken from somewhere – that being namely the chaotic street space that is most often used to poor efficiency by high carbon, un-sustainable, high cost (to all concerned), threatening, often dangerous and space-hungry car transport. This needs to be accomplished carefully and with respect to those who up to now have depended on their cars for much or all of the transportation needs. So this needs to be managed as a subtle, strategic process.

23. Bus lanes are too wide
This point has been made on repeated occasions by the adversaries to Vélib’ , and more generally to the new mobility innovations in Paris. The shared lanes are 4.5 metres wide, which is the size required for safe overtaking and worked out through careful negotiations between all the concerned parties.

24. Paris buses not equipped to carry cycles
No they are not. And most probably given the size of the service area, the availability of public bikes and the density of the public transportation network, this is not a significant option for Paris. (But this does not mean that this is something that your city should not at the very least be looking into).

25. Vélib’s do not like cobblestone streets and intersections
They do not at all. And if your city has a lot of them you will do well to consider how to work around this problem. In such cases maintenance costs zoom up, and when it rains so too do the accidents. Cobblestones and public bikes are not friends.

26. Too ugly and numerous to position near to historic monuments and plazas
This is weird, but it is a point that has been made by several groups concerned with the protection of the built patrimony environment in Paris. The irony is that while there is plentiful provision for car parking near to these monuments and public spaces, yet for now the Vélib’ stands are required to hide on side streets. This is a situation which surely will not last.

27. Theft and vandalism are threatening the project
The reported figure is on the order of three thousand bikes stolen or completely trashed in the first year. That’s a lot, but think of it as on the order of 300 per month or ten per day. And that out of 15,000-plus bikes on the road every day. Difficult but surely workable. (This should not be taken as encouraging laxity on your part I you are thinking about a PBS in your city. The vandalism and theft challenge is a real one and an indicator among other things of the level of social peace and inclusiveness in your city. From this respect it is every bit as important as climate and topographic considerations, and of course the quality and extent of safe cycling infrastructure.

28. It’s a “left wing” project
Oh dear. This does seem to crop up in certain media from time to time. It’s a pure blue herring. Public bicycle systems are social and environmental systems that correspond to our 21st century need for low carbon, resource-efficient, high amenity life styles. And that’s all there is to it.

29. It is wrong to have street advertising
This is essentially a pure demagogic position. Each city will have its own policy about outdoor advertising. If a public bicycle project makes use of a partnership of this kind, what is important is to get it right. And the mechanics of that can be quite delicate. That’s for sure.

30. The whole project is just a gadget
This is a very mature challenge actually. The fact is that the Vélib’ project in Paris, and indeed in all the other high impact cities with such systems, until now accounts for only a sliver of the total number of trips needed to ensure a healthy economy. But they signal and support an important change to a new way of getting around in cities. And that is at the end of the day probably their major contribution. And BTW, they also work. Including in Paris.

Happy birthday Vélib’. Great going Paris!

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Honk! Battered Bicycles in Paris

Vélib, Paris's pioneering, city-transforming public bike project has had its fair share (actually unfair share I would say) of vandalism and theft, and while it does not threaten the integrity and viability of the service, it is part of the landscape of public bikes and needs to be understood and taken into account. There is, in fact, a great deal that can be done to reduce the magnitude of these challenges , and indeed steps are being taken here. That said, let's have a look at some of the examples of damage, which have been collected for us by vigilant Eyes on the Street Sentinel in Paris, Larry Langner.


And here you have a poster placed on one of the JCDecaux street signs in Paris, warning that: "Breaking a bike is easy. It can't defend itself".

And then: "16,000 bikes vandalised, 8000 disappeared. Velib is yours. Protect it.

For more examples, click to http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-264472

* Editor's note: Click here to read report on "Reports of Vélib’s Demise Greatly Exaggerated"

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Report: Bicycle Sharing Systems Worldwide: Selected Case Studies

CityRyde LLC, a bicycle sharing consultancy founded in 2007 based in Philadelphia, PA would like to add a cherry on top of the information the World City Bike Forum provides - a free report just released that focuses on the bike sharing systems we get asked about most frequently.

Enter "Bicycle Sharing Systems Worldwide: Selected Case Studies" - a high-level synopsis that includes critical information about major vendors and deployments such as JCDecaux with Velib', Clear Channel Outdoors with SmartBike DC, Public Bike Systems with Bixi, B-cycle with Momentum B-cycle, CEMUSA with Nbici and Veolia Transportation with OyBike.

CityRyde has spent years researching and analyzing information about bike sharing implementations and their providers and strives to be the trusted source of bike sharing knowledge. For the first time ever, this information is compiled into a high-level synopsis which is easy to read and shared openly to the public.

"Bike Sharing Systems" focuses on the systems we get asked about most frequently, including major vendors and deployments such as JCDecaux with Velib’, Clear Channel Outdoors with SmartBike DC, Public Bike Systems with Bixi, B-cycle with Momentum B-cycle, CEMUSA with Nbici, and Veolia Transportation with OyBike. We have captured critical information about the systems including membership demographics, usage information, implementation costs, rental costs, bike share technology (bike, kiosk, locking mechanism), and implementation statistics.

Download this document at no charge by visiting our reports page at www.cityryde.com/reports

Don't hesitate to contact us with any questions, comments, concerns, etc.


Jason Meinzer, JHSMeinzer@cityryde.com
CityRyde LLC – www.CityRyde.com
Philadelphia, PA USA

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