Public Bicycles in Paris
 

Story here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070130/...iking_in_paris

Now that's ****ing awesome.

Awesome, but other than Amsterdam where people have bikes in their blood, has this ever worked anywhere?

It worked for about a month at my undergrad until all the bikes were either broken or stolen.

So...no. Not really.

I'm pretty sure Copenhagen has been doing this for years.

Cycling in the City
The City Bike (Bycyklen) Homepage

Since when does amsterdam have free bicycles?

When I was there you had to rent and bike theft was a serious issue.

It was pretty weird though, People rigidly obey the rules of the road - cars, bikes, peds. I kept juking or stopping or starting at the wrong times based on my US assumptions of what everyone else was going to do.

Awesome town though

ahh yes the french have come out with madonnacycle program

or is it pariscycle

"she's like the village bicycle everyones had a ride"

that's pretty cool but it's just a large scale yellow bike thing and that's been going on for a while now. i wonder what unlucky bastards get to work on those things when they crap out..

When I lived there, the RATP (metro/public transport authority) had a system where you could rent bikes for the day for cheap. They were all the same teale-green single speed cruisers (I think they were SS...I don't remember.) It was cool. Paris is the place to ride...In highschool I used to tear it up through the city on a geared mountain bike every morning on the way to school...good memories.

portland had yellow bikes for a short time

It does in Arcata, CA. We have a free bike library here.

I could only imagine what the bikes would look like if Clear Channel had gotten the contract. Billboard trailers connected to the back of every bike? ;)

yes, from the nation wide radio monopoly to diy venues such as the mccarren park pool clear channel likes to ruin everything

Amsterdam got that way by reducing the parking spaces in the city a few percent every year and increasing public trans. Maybe other citys should try the same thing?

You know, that whole idea of slow gradual change instead of right here right now.

im glad they didnt get it also. i don't know if this has popped up anywhere else (i havent left hawaii since june) but there are these "chopper" bikes locked up to the bike racks here with a huge front panel "buy this chopper ad for only 30 bucks a month!" i have yet to see one with an Ad on it but damn... gtfo of my bike rack.

I own a t-shirt that says "clear channel sucks". I'd say I average about one person each time I wear it that asks, "what does that mean?"

The problem is that around here, slow gradual change is always right here right now for someone. I mean, I don't care if they take away 1% of parking spaces each year. Its abstract and sounds reasonable. But if they removed that 1% of parking spaces from places I commonly visit, hypothetically speaking, I'd probably be sending it letters to the city and the newspapers etc. complaing bitterly. Local business community gets up in arms when people even mention removal of parking spaces. So nothing gets done, and they cram in more parking. They even have a lobby to remove some bike lanes from our city because the cause undue delay for motorists.

People here just can't see the forest for the trees really. We need some european common sense.

They opened a new mall here in San Francisco in the middle of the city but didn't add a parking garage or any additional parking spaces just to force people to think about mass transit. I thought that was a great idea.