Bike-sharing Presentation

For those in the Washington, D.C. area, I will be giving a talk about the international development of bike-sharing programs and discussing the efforts for bike transit in the U.S. Snacks will be provided at the presentation, which is free, by BikeArlington.

The presentation will be from 6:30 - 7:30pm at the Arlington County Government Center, 2100 Clarendon Blvd., in the lobby's Azalea Room. Space is limited, so RSVP by October 21 if you're interested in attending.

Hot Off the Virtual Presses!

Stats from "Newsletter Velo'v" (Lyon, France):

- # miles Velo'v bikes traveled in July 2007 - 761,883 mi
- # miles Velo'v bikes traveled in August 2007 - 691,986 mi
- # miles Velo'v bikes traveled since the beginning of the year - 5,945,754 mi
- # miles Velo'v bikes traveled since the program's launch in 2005 - 15,229,979 mi

Now that's a lot of calories burned and pollution not emitted! The Newsletter Velo'v states this equates to 5,000 tons of CO2 saved.

Velib' Video'

There's a great video about Velib' from New Zealand's TV3 titled "Bikes hoped to lessen Paris traffic woes". The video shows the bikes being used, a close-up of the locking mechanism, and the Paris transportation department's bike-sharing program manager, Celine Lepault, speaks about the program. Parisians are fortunate to have someone like Celine running the municipal aspects of Velib'. Having met with Celine in June, she was excited to practice her English with me in a discussion about the yet-to-be-launch service. Soon, with all of the interviews she has been giving, she'll be speaking English better than me.

Velib' for Tourists

An article in Sunday's Washington Post titled "Free Wheeling: Paris's New Bike System" shows tourists how to use Paris' Velib'. Make sure to bring your smart-chip Amex or Visa with you before you go.

"A major drawback for U.S. visitors is that you can sign up only with a smart-chip Visa card or an American Express card, a limitation that will leave a lot of Americans out in the cold. However, one card can be used to sign up several individuals. JCDecaux, the company running the system, says it hopes this problem will be resolved in the near future."

photo credit: The Washington Post

Paris' Popular Bike Program may Inspire Others

A glowing report was on NPR's "Weekend Edition Saturday" showcasing Velib'. The report states, "Launched in July, the 'Velib' bikes were part of the Paris mayor's idea of making the city more ecologically friendly and reducing traffic. Just two months on, the self-service bicycles have clocked some 3.7 million rides and seem to be changing the way people get around the city."

Also, Chicago had a Request for Proposals out which ended a few months ago looking for a company to provide bike-sharing service of 500 or 1,500 bikes to the city. Chicago's mayor Richard Daley visited Paris this week to go for a spin. "Daley says he thinks the bikes could work in Chicago."

photo credit: NPR

First-ever Bike-sharing Conference in Barcelona

I've been to lots of bike conferences and even one that included a session on bike-sharing, however, this conference in Barcelona is the first I'm aware of that is focused solely on bike-sharing. This two-day event will be on November 29 - 30. If you were looking for an excuse to go to Barcelona, here it is. This Website is in Spanish.

Humana's Freewheelin' Ridin' High

According to "Promoting pedal power" in the Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal, Humana Inc., one of the U.S.'s largest health care providers, has launched a bike-sharing program called Freewheelin' for its 8,500 Louisville employees. The program has 20 three-speed bikes with automatic shifters with five more bikes designed for longer treks, such as for commuting or lunchtime recreational rides. The system was designed by Canadian firm QI Systems, Inc. and uses Trek's Lime bikes. Presently, there are two stations, however, "Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson would like to see it expanded so city residents one day could check out a bike from a number of locations -- for example, to go wheeling around the parks," the article states.

So far about 2,000 of Humana's downtown employees "have enrolled in the program, and 300 or so have already used bikes [program manager Nate Kvamme said]. The company expects to add two more racks of bikes soon."

Other health care providers take note - bike-sharing is good for you!

This is only the 2nd bike-sharing program in the U.S. which I'm aware of. The 1st, also by QI Systems, is the Tulsa Townies program in Tulsa, Oklahoma which I've written about previously.

photo credit: The Courier-Journal

Beijing's Bike-Sharing

An alert reader has pointed me to infor on Beijing's bike-sharing program. According to BikeRadar, "After the overwhelming success of Paris' bike rental scheme China is jumping on the bandwagon with a project five times the size of the one in the French capital. In the recent months the Beijing Government has been trialling a bike rental scheme at 31 hire stations around the capital. This week it announced its expansion, with 200 outlets planned in time for the 2008 Summer Games."

Additionally, this program has a different business plan. "As well as tackling pollution, the scheme is aimed at reducing bike theft in Beijing. Unlike in Europe, where advertising agencies have been given premium space in exchange for running rental schemes, Beijing's bike programme is being sponsored by the anti-theft arm of the municipal public security bureau and the Beijing Environment Protection Bureau. Police officer Wang Xiaobing told China Daily: 'This is like a centralized management of bicycles so that citizens won't have to worry about thefts.' "

Pre-Velib' Bicycle Data

In a document titled "Vélib’ à Paris", useful statistics are provided about Paris in its efforts of becoming a worldclass bicycle city. Some interesting numbers :

- 231 miles (371 km) of cycle tracks (physically separated bike lanes) in 2006, and
- 1.63% of all trips were made by cyclists in 2006.

They'll need a new scale for this graph for 2007 as the mode share could be as high as, dare I say 15%, with the new 20,600 bikes on the street. These baseline numbers will be helpful in determining just how successful bike-sharing has been for the city. As I've mentioned in earlier posts on The Bike-sharing Blog, Lyon experienced a 400-500% increase in bike model share in 2 1/2 years with Velo'v and Barcelona experienced a 100% increase in three months with Bicing.

Enter Sevilla and Córdoba

Córdoba and Sevilla, Spain will be launching the Cyclocity bike-sharing technology offered by JCDecaux in 2008. According to AutoblogGreen, the Córdoba program, Ciclocity, will be on the smallish size with 35 bikes and 4 stations. The service will be offered free to registered members. The Sevilla program, Sevici, will be on a grander scale with 2,500 bikes and 250 stations.

Along with these two Spanish programs and the five new programs to be launched in France in 2008, it looks like it'll be a busy year for JCDecaux.

photo credit: noseque.net

Today, Call a Bike launched its 6th program, this one in Karlsruhe, Germany. This bike-sharing program has a fleet of 350 bikes. With a phone number and unique bike number printed on every bike, folks can rent a Call a Bike via their mobile phone for 8 cents per minute, or at a lower 6 cents per minute rate with a special rail "BahnCard". This means a 30-minute ride on a Call a Bike costs between $1.80 and $2.40.

Rather than specific station locations where the bikes could be be picked up and returned, the bikes can be returned to any intersection in the center city and locked to a fixed object, like a bike rack or street sign post, with a strong cable lock that is built into the bike. This provides great flexibility as customers can get within feet of their destination with the public bikes.

The Deutsche Bahn source is in German, however, can be translated with AltaVista's Babelfish.

photo credit: Call a Bike

Seoul and London are On Deck

As reported in The Korea Times, Seoul is planning to launch a bike-sharing program similar to Velib' soon. According to the article, Seoulites Can Borrow Bicycles, "The city plans to first set up 200 bike stations in Songpa-gu where cycle routes are well prepared with about 5,000 bikes and expand the project to other areas of the city."

Also, reported in The Financial Times and Road Cycling UK, London's Mayor Ken Livingstone was so impressed with Velib' which he rode during a visit to watch the Tour de France that he requested Transport for London to examine the feasbility of such a program in London to promote cycling.

Livingstone said, "Cycling is a clean, fast and cheap way to get around London and we have seen an 83 per cent increase in cycling since I became Mayor. I have seen the Paris Freedom Bike scheme, and discussed it with the Mayor of Paris. It clearly works and is highly popular. I have asked transport officials in London to study the Parisian and similar schemes in order to draw up proposals for a scheme which would meet the needs of London. I am sure that we can learn from the success of the Parisian and similar schemes to expand access to cycling in London."

photo credit: Will Fox

BikeDispenser Does Just That

Dutch company Springtime has developed the BikeDispenser to provide bike-sharing in Amsterdam. A fleet of adjustable mini-bikes are housed inside the structure and accessible for customers with a membership smartcard. The bikes may be returned at another BikeDispenser location.

This is a new way of dispensing bikes in the West that is popular in Japan and other Asian countries.

photo credit: BikeDispenser

Velib' Rolls Past its Millionth Trip

According to Australian news website News.com.au, Paris's Velib' bike-sharing program has reached an important milestone after just three weeks since its launch - 1,000,000 trips have been made on the utilitarian public bicycles.

Paris's deputy mayor for transport, Denis Baupin, states that an average of 6 trips are made on each bike every day. With 10,000 bikes at the present time, it's no wonder that so many trips by bike have been made. Baupin goes on to say, "Once all the stations are up and running, Velib will be carrying as many people as the Paris tramway." How do you like that - bike transit is only 12 years old (since the launch of Copenhagen's Bycyklen in 1995) and it's maturing into a transit system with the capabilities of a tramway system, albeit relatively new as well.

The article also states the bike-sharing program has been so successful that Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe has ordered a feasability study on extending the scheme into the Paris suburbs. Look out, Copenhagen, it looks like Paris wants the title of World Bike Town.

Tulsa Townies Gearing Up

As omnipotent blogs WashCycle and RPUS point out from an article in Tulsa World, a new bike-sharing program is soon to be underway in Tulsa, OK, with the launch of "Tulsa Townies". This program will have 75 bikes located amongst 4 stations.

"The bikes, which will be free to users, are part of a pilot program designed to promote healthy lifestyles, said John-Kelly Warren, chief executive of the William K. Warren Foundation," the article states.

I've read that all the bikes are located in a parks, so will be mainly used for recreational purposes. This program is similar to the Dasani Blue Bike Program, which also has a recreational focus.

Go Tulsa! With the launch of your new bike-sharing program, it looks like you are OK afterall.

photo credit: Tulsa World