Introduction

This is taken from today’s CTC newsletter. I never thought it’d work! Especially in PARIS…  what do I know? !!

Parisians embrace ‘freedom’ bike scheme

Taxi drivers and other critics said that it would never work, but three weeks after Paris was sprinkled with 10,000 self-service bicycles, the ‘Velib’ scheme is proving a triumph and a new pedalling army appears to be taming the city’s famously fierce traffic, reports The Times this week. Dave Holladay, CTC’s bikes & public transport campaigner, told the paper it’s a scheme we should be using over here:

“It takes no more than 15 minutes to get to any Central London terminus by bike, so there could be huge benefits for the city” he said.

Full article in The Times here

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Update 21 Aug 2009

Since it started, there’s even an English version of the Velib website (see here, how’s it work?) and the system has now passed it’s second birthday and is being expanded into suburbia and beyond!

The key fact is that there have been 50 million usages in only two years!  Just think of the energy savings and reduced congestion (of traffic and lungs!)

See links below:

• Reports of Vélib’s Demise Greatly Exaggerated
• Happy birthday Vélib 2009
• Parisians still find Vélib’ liberating

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