I expect I’m not the first to use that as a title, but as of 15 July, Paris has gone Velib crazy.
Velib (an abbreviation of Velo (bike) and Liberation (freedom) is a new scheme which the government have invested in to encourage people out of their cars and off their lethal scooters and onto pedal power. For the last couple of months there have ben roadworks on every other street corner as the new Velib stations, housing 20,000 bikes in all, have been put in.
The Velib basically works like this: You pick up a bike from any station you like, and either feed in your credit card as you would a parking meter, or swipe your Velib card (30 Euros for a year, entitling you to 30mins a day), and then you can just park it in another parking space anywhere in the city once you’ve finished. It costs 1euro every 30 mins if you exceed (or don’t have) your annual pass, which is probably a cheaper way of getting across town that a single metro ticket.
They’re not the coolest looking bikes, but judging by the number of people cruising up and down the banks of the Canal St Martin on Sunday, they’re already quite a hit.
I can’t se them being taken up in London though - for starters, Paris is a lot more bike friendly, with dedicated cycle lanes on most of the main boulevards. And they don’t seem to get smashed up at night either, which is what’d probably happen if you left a load of bikes unattended in London overnight…
It could be an interesting way of getting home after a night on the tiles…
