http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007033.html
Paris Buys Citizens Bikes
Erica Barnett
July 18, 2007 12:02 PM
Article Photo
Paris, France has adopted an innovative, yet
wonderfully simple, approach to reducing
congestion and greenhouse-gas emissions in city
limits. It's buying its citizens bikes.
22,000 of them.
The program, paid for by an outdoor advertiser in
exchange for the exclusive use of 1,628 urban
billboards, allows people to rent the large gray
bicycles at a rate 1 euro ($1.38) a day; a week
pass costs 5 euros ($6.90) and a yearly
subscription, 29 euros ($40). The fee gets you a
maximum of 30 minutes' bike use at a time; ride
for longer in one trip, and there's a small
incremental fee. The time limit is intended to
keep the bikes in circulation; however, you can
use the program as many times as you like within
the period for which you've bought a pass.
The program is part of an effort by Paris mayor
Bertrand Delanoë, who is aiming to reduce car
traffic in the city by 40 percent by 2020. The
number of bikes in Paris has increased by 50
percent in the last six years; thanks to the
principle of critical mass (the more bikers there
are, the safer they are), the number of accidents has stayed roughly the same.
Yellow-bike and similar programs have met with
mixed success in the US. Perhaps what the Paris
experiment demonstrates is that it takes a
massive show of will (and prioritization of
dollars) to create the critical mass we need to
revolutionize our transportation system.
--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
