Gordon Price has one of the best overviews I’ve seen of the Paris bikesharing/rental program in his “PriceTags” #101 (PDF, 2.8M).
Let’s hope for a similar system here very soon.
Speaking of bikes, I have a few spaces left ($75 each) at my table at the BTA’s “Alice in Paris” fundraiser on March 22nd. If you’d like to join our group, please contact me.
0 responses to “Paris Vélib’”
That’s a very impressive system. It looks like a lot of thought has been given to the problems associated with the “free bike” programs of the past, and combined with clever logistics and technology, they’ve come up with a system that serves users well.
Here’s the Wikipedia page on Vélib’.
I note that the system is operated for the city of Paris under contract from one of their largest advertising providers. Is there any information on the financial self-sufficiency of the overall system? The city is clearly providing ROW for the stations, but is there subsidy beyond the exclusivity of the contract and the ROW?
The exponential pricing scheme is very interesting — it provides a great incentive to return a bike as soon as you have completed your one-way journey. The first hour is only 1 € ($1.56), but if you keep the bike over 20 hours, the price escalates all the way to 150 €. (Sadly, about $234 at today’s exchange rates. Was it so long ago that the Euro was trading close to 1:1 to the US Dollar?)
It really is an excellent system. I was in Paris in November and used it the entire time I was there. My best memory of that trip was cycling up the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe in beautiful Indian summer weather. It was magical.
I was amazed at how effective the system is. Before using it myself, I was quite skeptical, as I had been a big fan of the Call a Bike system run by Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) here in Munich and other major German cities. The advantage of Call a Bike is that bikes can be deposited and picked up just about anywhere. But there is a downside: you can never be quite sure where to find them. With the station density they’ve implemented in Paris you can still find a bike almost anywhere (as it’s never far to the nearest station) and the probability of there being an available bike is quite high, simply because they have so many of them (a benefit of the high level of investment put into the system from the start). Needless to say I was convinced and would like to see Munich adopt Paris’ system. (With that many bikes, not having stations would become unwieldy, what with bikes clogging every street corner!)
There were only two instances during my visit when I had problems with availability, and both times it was not due to not being able to find a bike but rather to not being able to find a free space to return it to. But in both cases going just a block or two further solved the problem.
I was able to figure out signing up for the rental system fairly quickly. The menus are offered in English (which is handy if you’re like me and can only speak four words of French, with three of them being “one, two, three”). At the time of my visit it seemed that only European credit cards were accepted; I don’t know if this is still the case.
One thing of note is that it is possible and quite simple to rent multiple bikes simultaneously: you just go through the rental process twice. Just don’t forget that it will charge you the €150 deposit per bicycle until you return them.
The bicycles themselves were joys to ride. As noted in the linked article, they are heavy and rugged, yet somehow still graceful. And you do in fact see people of all walks of life all over the city in all sorts of weather riding them. It’s a resounding success.
One thing to consider for possible North American adaptation is the funding scheme: although Mr. Price notes that the advertising space gained by JCDecaux adds clutter and advertising to an already cluttered and saturated advertising public realm, it would seem to me that the overall amount of available advertising space in Paris is nowhere near that of the typical American city. Would these small street-billboards be so lucrative as to finance a system like this in the U.S.? Paris doesn’t have giant drive-in-movie-screen-size billboards as are typical in the U.S. Thoughts?
As far as the pricing goes, it seemed perfect. On only one occasion did I wind up keeping a bike past the 30 minute free ride limit, and I was never consciously pressing myself for time.
Also, Mr. Price failed to note in his article is that the service vehicles are battery powered.
I really love Paris.
The only problem with that city is the Parisians.
Let’s hope for a similar system here very soon.
The City of Portland put out an RFP last year for implementing a bike-sharing program. There was supposed to be a decision already, but I haven’t heard anything in a while.
BikePortland.org has been covering this issue, the most recent article is from February:
http://bikeportland.org/2008/02/29/bike-rental-bidder-brings-paris-to-portland/
Here are a number of articles going back a year on bike-sharing:
http://bikeportland.org/cats/bike-sharing-system/
My main hope is that if the city goes forward with this, that they have lots of locations with lots of bikes, because that’s how it will gain popularity. I also hope that the system will be extendable outside of the city limits, as this could extend the reach of transit in the suburbs as well.
@ James A
who says “There were only two instances during my visit when I had problems with availability, and both times it was not due to not being able to find a bike but rather to not being able to find a free space to return it to. But in both cases going just a block or two further solved the problem.”
Of course , here in Paris , the top problem is to get rid of one’s velib .
Some web sites gather velib data ; have a look for example to the velib station in front of the AUSTERLITZ railways station
Station 13014
And read some french unofficial forums ( google research = forum vélib) for example forum-velib
If this were implemented in Portland;
our hyper-sensitive bicycle community (“The Bikaratti”) would complain that the bikes weren’t fast enough.
our hipsters would not ride them because of the brakes and multiple gears.
our hummer driving suburban friends would complain that Mexicans are taking jobs away from ordinary Americans, while at the same time voting against tax programs that would help the people who actually ARE losing jobs to immigrant workers (I cant wait until I meet a lawyer or doctor who lost their job to an illegal!).
those in gresham would see this as an example of portland’s liberal elitism.
Of course, the machines that dispense the bikes would never work; but only minorities would ever be accused of stealing one.
On the plus side… can we hire zoo-bombers to bring the bikes up hills?
Complainer wisely asks: “On the plus side… can we hire zoo-bombers to bring the bikes up hills?”
No, each bicycle will be carried by streetcar to the aerial tram, and brought up hill that way.
;-)
COMPLAINER-
Very good! Very good indeed!
Excellentissime rare!
Extraordinaire!
This is Portland. There are those who will do nothing but complain about the efforts of others to improve the city. Since they bring nothing constructive of note and represent a minority of public opinion, best to ignore them and keep on making Portland a great place to live.
Bring on the Velib! Vive la Portland!!!
Whoa there, nuoverecord.
You’re making a huge logical leap that what succeeds in Paris will succeed in Portland.
Paris is the largest city in its respective country, one of the “Capitals of the World”, in a socialist country with relatively a lot of money in order to fund service programs.
Portland is a 3rd-tier city in an extremely large nation; which is capitalist and generally anti-tax, and is frequently without funds to provide for even more basic services.
Beyond that,
Paris is a highly centralized city with a street infrastructure that predates the automobile, meaning driving across town is harder in Paris than in Portland.
Bicycling in Paris is viewed as something people of all ages do to get around; Bicycling in Portland is viewed as something Bicyclists do (I’d like to know what percentage of the working population hasn’t ridden a bike in the past 5 years in Portland compared to Paris)
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Really, we cannot in this region take an attitude that every economic/transportation/housing/etc. development initiative that works some place else in the world is a good thing and will work for Portland. Portland has its own cultural values that are different from Paris, New York, Austin, Seattle, or Gresham. You can’t copy and paste. To blithely follow one development fad after another is a subtle, insidious form of facism.
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If you look at my post above, they’re all based in some sort of truth – our MAX and Streetcar ticket machines work essentially on a coin-flip basis.
We have a vocal bicycle community that is more than happy to disregard the interest of drivers – their brothers and sisters in our city – to advance their own causes
We have people riding fashion accessories (track bikes) without regard to the safety risk the pose to other cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians.
We are unable to enforce fares on our current transit system, what enforcement we do have shows pronounced racial bias.
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So, nuovorecord, there you have it. Is the Freedom Cycle model good for Portland? I don’t know. I have little confidence that we’d be able to implement at a scale needed to be effective, or our ability to manage the program within budgetary constraints. I would see that program as more of a novelty, a way for a future city commissioner to garner extra votes right before election time.
Until this city can take care of its priorities and get itself on flush financial times, side programs such as this aught to remain on the shelt.
“Bicycling in Paris is viewed as something people of all ages do to get around; Bicycling in Portland is viewed as something Bicyclists do”
No, not really…
In 1998 the Paris bicycling mode split was less 2%. For comparison, Portland is somewhere between 5-10% right now, (depending on summer or winter and how exactly you count it.)
In the last few years Paris has made major investments in bicycle infrastructure. The bicycle rental program is part of that, but one of the big things they did was tear out traffic lanes to make cycle tracks (bike paths that are separated from automobiles by a curb, with dedicated traffic signals when you cross major streets: you can see a picture of them on page 13-14 of the pdf.) Those didn’t exist until a few year ago.
When they mention the 68% ridership growth between 2006 and 2007 (page 17 of the pdf) that isn’t just because of the rental program, (although that certainly helps,) it is because of the major investment in bicycling infrastructure. But I think that might have to do with the fact that Paris will be hit by a glacier if the gulf stream stops and so they are doing more than just paying lip service to global warming…
As for us, I’m fairly sure we could see 68% bicycle ridership growth if we made similar investments in infrastructure, but at the moment we have to settle for some green plastic. And every little bit helps, certainly, but what we’ve done so far are only little bits…
Complainer:
The number of cyclists, the number of cycling trips, and the number of cycling miles have all increased faster than the population growth in Portland over the past twenty years.
I think when you add in the fact that 60% of Portlanders who don’t currently ride, say they would ride a bike if it were safer and more convenient, it’s very logical to assume that making cycling safer and more convenient will lead to greater numbers of people riding. That has been the case to date. You can get more detail at the links below.
http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=44597&a=158497
http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=44671
I don’t turn a blind eye to the shortcomings of Portland. But the typical poster on this, and other websites, who uses the argument that the city ought to be “taking care of its priorities,” to quote you, usually hates bicycles, transit, land use planning and most of the other stuff that has made Portland such a great place to live.
To wit…
If you look at my post above, they’re all based in some sort of truth – our MAX and Streetcar ticket machines work essentially on a coin-flip basis.
This has what, exactly, to do with bike rentals, or the City of Portland? It’s a TriMet issue, and one that rightly ought to be fixed. But it has nothing to do with the City’s proposed bike rental plan. It’s a good gratuitous shot at transit, though.
We have a vocal bicycle community that is more than happy to disregard the interest of drivers – their brothers and sisters in our city – to advance their own causes
What exactly, is the “interest of drivers” that the bicycle community is so willing to disregard? Seems to me that cyclists’ main interest is to simply stay alive and have a safe place on our streets to ride. That is certainly my main issue. Does that seem unreasonable to you? Would you simply prefer that they all just drive cars instead?
We have people riding fashion accessories (track bikes) without regard to the safety risk the pose to other cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians.
How many accidents, injuries, close calls or any other facts related to track bikes can you share with us? The reality is that few cyclists in Portland ride fixed-gear bikes without brakes. Why, exactly, is this a safety problem?
We are unable to enforce fares on our current transit system, what enforcement we do have shows pronounced racial bias.
Again, what does this have to do with bicycles?
So, of all the problems you raise, only two are related to cycling and are not factually based. You offer no solutions to any problems, merely complaints, plus yet another accusation of Portland being fascist and socialist.
It’s easy to be a complainer. And there’s a vocal minority of them floating about. But I don’t see any of the complainers in this city doing much to make any situation better. Complaining doesn’t solve problems, it just slows down progress.
5% bicycle mode share is way too high. Census 2000 Journey to Work data shows a share of less than 1.5% for Portland; 2000 “Means of Transportation to Work” shows a 1.6% rate.
the Journey to Work data is for the MSA (which includes Beaverton and other close-in suburbs), the 1.6% figure is (apparently) for the City of Portland only.
If you want to claim a 5% figure today, we’ve already seen greater than 300% growth without Velib… in which case, why bother?
2000 Census data is getting old. Much has changed in Portland since then. 2006 ACS data shows City of Portland with a 4.15% bicycle mode split for Journey to Work.
Velib probably won’t be used for commuting. That doesn’t seem to be its purpose. It should be viewed as another form of public transit; just one that’s more flexible and goes directly where you want to go. It provides one more way for people to get around without using a car.
Wow, 4.15% is need the ACS result for 2006. I ran them backwards for comparison:
2006: 4.15%
2005: 3.47%
2004: 2.81%
2003: 3.01%
2002: 2.63%
2001 and 2000, we only have data for Gresham.
I’d like to be able to tie the ACS results to the Census results – perhaps Bob R. can help us here. I think that 4% figure is high; my wager is on something in the 2% range.
BUT.. if we have indeed nearly tripled our bicycle commuters rate since the last census, it seems as if our current investments in increased bicycle commuting are getting the maximum bang for the buck.
It would be nice to have a more definitive methodology for generating a cycling commute number, as well as a good figure for all cycling trips. A system like Velib might help with this, assuming data is being collected on the movements of the bikes, etc.
Just for comparison, the City of Portland cites about 5.4% of residents regularly cycle to work, ranging up to 14% doing so on a occasional basis. By clicking the second link in my post above, you can read more about this.
I’m not saying their number’s right or wrong, though. Regardless, the trend is definitely upwards.
I love the idea, and would happily support it in Portland. I’d be a lot more likely to go out to the suburbs if I could take a bus to a mile bike ride rather than a bike to a mile walk.
Plus, strategically placing a few stations near Forest Park, the Zoo MAX stop, the river, etc would probably be popular with tourists and suburbanites who don’t want to travel with a bike.
Another unmentioned (I think) perk would be if the weather was iffy, ride a bike, drop it off, and if it rains take a bus back instead. There’s no commitment to ride back if it’s a one way trip, and with the weather in Portland some days that’s a huge plus.
I’d assume that from what the numbers in the article read, we could get a trial system here in Portland to see if it would work out with revenues and advertising.