Bicyclette breakout

Help-yourself cycle scheme comes to French capital

Parisians waking up with sore post-Bastille Day heads this July 15 should have literally thousands of free bicycles on hand to help them pedal off the effects. How much quieter, less car-cluttered and polluted this will make the streets thereafter remains to be seen - but there are high hopes for the 20,000-cycle scheme.

Known as Vélib’ (a composite French abbreviation for cycle and freedom), it’s based on a successful, if somewhat smaller, initiative that’s been operating for the last two years in Lyon. It relies not on hippy-style hope, like some earlier utopian efforts elsewhere in Europe, but on a sophisticated network of lock-up bike ranks (1,000 from the date of the launch, and another 450 by the end of the year) spread right across the city. You need a smart card to liberate a distinctive red bike for your trip - and, after half an hour of free travel, you’ll be charged by the half hour till you lock the bike up again in the rack nearest your destination. The aim is to keep the bikes on the go - in Lyon each one gets used 10-12 times a day. Fail to return a bike longer-term, and your debit card (which you have to use to get on the scheme initially) will automatically take a hefty hit to cover its full replacement cost. Outdoor advertising giant JCDecaux, the private company that won mayor Bertrand Delanoé’s contract to run the scheme, bears all the costs but gets a welter of prime-site poster locations in return - plus green kudos to boot. It’s already been a winning formula for them, not just in Lyon [above] but in Vienna and several Spanish cities too. Transport for London described it as “an innovative idea, which we are watching with interest”. - Roger East

24 June 2007

Roger East