Decatur has a Bicycle program called Yellow Bikes(click here to see) you can use but I never see them around. For more info on the Decatur Bikes click here.
This morning CBS Morning news had a story about bikes to rent in Paris and for that city it worked very well.
Maybe Decatur could learn a thing or two from Paris' program.
Here is the story of the Paris bikes below.
PARIS - To Arnaud Sauret, 37, the city's new bike-for-rent program is the best way to get home after a late night of clubbing, when the subway is closed and taxis are scarce.
For Jean-Marc Herbes,67,the bikes offer a cheap and fun Sunday afternoon
ride with his wife.
"And it's convivial," Herbes said. "People talk to each other."
They are among 100,000 Parisians who have signed up for a one-year subscription to Velib' – or bike liberty – since its launch. The hugely successful program has already spawned copy-cat plans in other cities and is being studied by New York City transit officials.
Mayor Bloomberg called the program "fascinating" during a weekend stop in Paris, but expressed doubts it could work at home, where roads are rough, designated bike lanes are few, and helmets rare. But to transit advocates, exporting Velib' to New York makes sense.
"It's a perfect idea for New York," said Noah Budnick, deputy director of Transportation Alternatives, who said that research shows New Yorkers would use bikes for quick cross-town trips if they didn't have to worry about parking them.
Velib' solves that problem by placing docking stations – 1,450 by years' end – citywide. If one station is full, riders need not go far, sometimes only a few hundred feet, to find another one.
You can always find a place to park, there's so many places everywhere," said Stephane Brangier, 36, who often leaves his own bike at home and pays a small fee to use Velib'.
The man behind Velib', Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, has won kudos from environmentalists for making life tough for motorists, who have lost 6,000 parking spaces in recent years as Delanoe has transformed streets into pedestrian-only zones, widening sidewalks and installing trees and benches. Velib' was his latest move to urge Parisians to leave their cars behind on cross-town trips.
Plus, the city stands to rake in an estimated $28 million this year alone in fees paid by the bike users – a one-day pass costs $1.40 with the first 30 minutes free. After that, users pay an increasing scale of fees. An annual subscription costs $41 with the same hourly fees. The idea is to take short trips.
And, best of all for fiscal hawks, the program costs the city nothing. JC Decaux, an international outdoor ad company, put up $88 million to launch the program and maintains the bikes in exchange for use of 1,600 city billboards.
So far, 300 bikes have been stolen, all of them improperly docked by users (who pay a $210 security deposit) and another 320 damaged, said Albert Asseras, JCDecaux's director general in charge of the program.
And critics complain that novice Velibers, who share bus-taxi lanes, are a road hazard. There is even a Facebook group railing against the riders called "I ran over a Velib.'"
So far, there have been 29 minor crashes involving the rented bikes, a surprisingly small number considering there are some 10,600 bikes cruising the streets each day, with 10,000 more planned over the next few months.
"It's too dangerous, the cabs would kill us," said Deborah Epstein, a New Yorker who rented bikes yesterday in Paris with her husband, David, and was dubious the program could work in New York. "Because of the bikes lanes [in Paris] it makes it easy. Without it, it would be difficult."
But a fix may be in the works for that drawback. The city's first protected bike lane in Chelsea is set to open by Thanksgiving. The seven-block stretch will run curbside with plastic posts called bollards separating bikes and cars, a Department of Transportation spokesman said.
And helmets? Although it's not considered practical to rent them along with the bikes, according to Budnick, they're not as important to rider safety as building protected lanes, something City Hall seems committed to doing.
So could Velib' work in New York? Budnick says yes.
Having a bike as key mode of transport "says a lot about the kind of city it is and the quality of life" he said. "You don't have to be someone wearing spandex to ride a bike. It's just something people do."
BY LINDA HERVIEUX
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
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