Yet another reason to love Paris: It now has one of the world’s largest bike-sharing systems – Vélib’, or Vélo Liberté. Freedom Bike.
I not only had a chance to use the bikes for a week while in Paris but also got a tour of some of the operations. If you want a look at the future (there’s a task force working on a proposal for TransLink), then check out this issue.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that we need a lot more bike infrastructure *before* we implement any bike sharing system in the Vancouver area.
Nice report.
The 50 lb weight of the bike means that they are sturdy and no one will be stealing them – but Vancouver’s hills could exact a toll on some people.
I like the automatic head lights and tail lights.
I think that you’d need a lot of bike stations south of False Creek as well as downtown. Given that downtown is compact and generally walkable (without having to incur a bike rental charge) the biggest demand would probably come from the intermediate distances – where it is too close to downtown to drive (and pay park), expensive to take transit for such a short distance and walkable on a good summer’s day (i.e. Fairview to downtown, CityGate to downtown, Mt.. Pleasant to downtown & Kitsilano to downtown).