An Insider's Look at the Paris Velib Bikeshare Program | Bike Commuters

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An Insider’s Look at the Paris Velib Bikeshare Program

May 28th 2009

By: Jack "Ghost Rider" Sweeney

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I discovered a series of articles on Paris’s Velib program a few weeks back at the excellent Velo Vogue blog (“Where the Bike Lane Meets the Runway”). The articles are packed with insider photos and text that show the inner workings of this wildly successful program and are definitely worth a visit.

It’s a multi-part series and includes:

Velib Parts and What Breaks

Velib Parts and Storage

Velib Mechanics by Boat

Velib Mechanics by Truck

Velib Mechanics by Bike

Looks like the folks at JC Decaux thought of everything…I mean, really: a floating mechanic’s barge?!? How cool is THAT?

(photo courtesy of Lilia at Velo Vogue)

Check out the other great stuff over at Velo Vogue — there are all kinds of wonderful bikey scenes over there!

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- Stuart M.
  
  May 28th, 2009 at 20:31
  
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  I hate to “rain on your parade” so soon, but the BBC has reported some major problems with the Velib bicycle rental program, the major one being theft. Check out:
  
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7881079.stm
  
  “Over half the original fleet of 15,000 specially made bicycles have disappeared, presumed stolen.
  
  They have been used 42 million times since their introduction but vandalism and theft are taking their toll.
  
  The company which runs the scheme, JCDecaux, says it can no longer afford to operate the city-wide network. ”
  
  I was enthusiastic about this program when I first heard about it a year ago, and I assumed it could work because those Europeans are so much more “civilized” than we Americans, but I was wrong. The bikes are being outright stolen or abused by “boys” riding them down public stairs, etc.
  
  How long do you think that rental program would work in America?
- Elizabeth
  
  May 28th, 2009 at 20:50
  
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  JC Decaux supplies the bus stops in Chicago with advertising…. Wish a similar program could be sponsored here.
  
  Aren’t the rentals linked to CC info so that the
  renter gets charged for an unreturned bike?
- Ghost Rider
  
  May 28th, 2009 at 20:56
  
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  I seem to remember reading a counterpoint to this article when it came out back in February…suggesting that the “doom and gloom” was overblown. I can’t locate that article just now, though.
  
  I stand behind my statement of “wildly successful” — 42 million uses is pretty spectacular no matter how you slice it.
  
  For a U.S.-based program, check out D.C.’s “Smartbike” — not nearly as extensive as Velib but showing good promise so far:
  
  https://www.smartbikedc.com/program_information.asp
  
  @Elizabeth — that’s what I’ve heard, too. Don’t bring the bike back? Get charged for it! Folks figured out a way to break them off the storage racks, though…one of the above articles addresses the beefing up of that part of the bike/rack interface.
- angdis
  
  May 29th, 2009 at 07:35
  
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  I just came back from a vacation in Paris. While I personally did not use the velib system, it was clear that this program is hugely popular. Students, business-people, grandma’s — every demographic you can imagine uses these things.
  
  I heard about the problems with it, but when you take the bigger view that this is intended to be part of a public transit system, the problems with theft and vandalism don’t seem to be significant enough to destroy the benefits. There are A LOT of these bikes. I am thinking that over time the theft rate will simply plateau and the ubiquity of the bikes makes theft less desireable.
  
  I did notice that the rims on the wheels were freakin’ tough. Does anyone know what rims these are?
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