Bike-sharing recently turned 46. The idea can really claim to be an old one, although for many years it was regarded as an eccentric habit for small municipalities or proto-environmentalist movements. Until Copenhagen, in 1995, launched the service onto its flat and calm streets. But the “public bicycle” did not enter the age of maturity, and did not become a popular ingredient of the local green economy, before 2005. In this year the second most populous center of France, Lyon, launched Velo’v. Two years later Paris opened its own service, Velib, scattering 800 stations all around the city for a total amount of 10 thousand bicycles (afterwards raised to 20 thousand).
The two French cases were successful beyond any expectation. According to a recent study of CERTU (Center for governmental studies on transport and urban development), Lyon is the first urban area of the country to have recorded a reduction in the number of cars. It is partly thanks to the so-called “Velo’v effect”. Indeed not only residents assaulted the local bike driving in just five years for some 25 million kilometers. But, as Lyon’s mobility commissioner Gilles Vesco put it, “they also started to buy private bikes”. As a consequence, bikes traffic increased by 500%.
The case of Paris is even brighter. In the French capital Velib accounts for 120 thousand daily trips, 80 million since the launching of the service. A record for which the Parisians take much proud: 98% of residents said they liked the service. However, impressing positive figures are offset by negative ones. Unfortunately theft and vandalism on Velib bicycles flourish. According to estimates published in late 2009, about 8 thousand bikes would disappeared while almost 16 thousand were “vandalized”. One lot of Velib was even found in Marseille in a ship due to sail to Morocco. Vandalisms, according to the editorialist of Le Monde Bertrand Le Gendre, may have a sociological origin: “Velib are an urban icon, an attribute of the Parisian bourgeoisie, thus becoming an easy target for the social anger (and envy) of immigrants and poor “.
Collateral damages aside, Paris is a crucial watershed for the bike-sharing. It is a more concrete example that major European cities can brilliantly tackle the age-old problem of mobility with a wave of bicycles. So much so that London decided to follow suit, launching last July the “Barclay cycle hire. A successful story.
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