Re: Velib in Paris: Balance Sheet for First Year

[John Kane]

On Jun 25, 3:15 am, Artemisia <[email protected]> wrote:
> Here's an article, in French, in today's Le Figaro about the first
> anniversary of the introduction of the Vélib free public bicycle
> scheme and its successes and costs.
>
> The upshot is, Velib brings in big money to the City of Paris, but is
> extremely costly to JCDecaux, the advertizing firm that is under
> contract to supply and maintain the bikes in return for advertizing
> poster space. The main reason for the high costs being, surprise me,
> vandalism and theft.

Thanks, it is an interesting article. It certainly seems that
Parisiens like the idea. For some reason I had not realized the size
of the program. I was thinking in the low 1,000s of bikes not in the
teens.

The amount of repairs and theft is suprising, especially the theft.
From what I remember of the bikes I had not expected them to be that
popular a target for thieves. I got a kick out of the tourists riding
them in Casablanca.

By the way what's with bus lanes? I had heard about the tram but not a
bus lanes fiasco.

John Kane Kingston ON Canada

 

[Andrew Price]

On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:59:06 -0700 (PDT), John Kane
<[email protected]> wrote:

[---]

>By the way what's with bus lanes? I had heard about the tram but not a
>bus lanes fiasco.

Hardly surprising that you hadn't heard about it, because there is no
"bus lane fiasco". Just the usual wishful thinking and biased
reporting to be expected from a newspaper like "Le Figaro".

 

[James Thomson]

"John Kane" <[email protected]> a écrit:

> By the way what's with bus lanes? I had heard about the
> tram but not a bus lanes fiasco.

If you mean the user comment:

M Delanoë avait déjà saturé les voies ed circulation normale.
Maintenant; grâce au Velib, c'est au tour des voies de bus d'être
bloquées .E effet, en plaçant massivementd es vélo dans les
voies de bus, ceux ci reste bloquée 3/4 du temps derrière un
vélo. Il ne peuvent pas le dépasser, car il faut qu'il se rabatte à
droite pour un arrêt. Résultat, maintenant en bus on va à la
vitesse d'un vélo, sans compter que ceux ci grillent les feux rouges;

Mais le fait de dessiner de jolis vélo dans les couloirs de bus,
a permsi de les comptabiliser dans les km de piste cyclables crées.

On fait cohabiter dans cet espace (souvent clos) des véhicules
et des usagers qui n'ont ni les même vitesse ni les pmême susage.
Un vélo va doucement mais régulièrement. Un bus accélère, décélère
et s'arrête fréquement pour faire monter et descendre les boyageurs.
Résultats ces uasagers aux comportement différents ne peuvent
cohabiter dans les voies du bus.

the complaint is that bicycle signs have been painted in bus lanes to
augment the stats for the creation of new cycle lanes. In Paris a bus lane
is supposedly for RATP (Paris Transport Authority) vehicles *only* unless
other vehicles (including bicycles) are explicitly allowed by signage -
though in reality taxis and bikes are tolerated. Paris bus lanes usually
have a physical barrier of curb height to divide them from the other lanes,
and they're typically not much wider than a bus. That means that buses get
stuck behind cyclists, and vice versa.

I don't have any experience of the problem from a bus passenger's point of
view - I haven't taken a bus in my six years here in Paris. As a cyclist,
aggression from bus drivers isn't uncommon.

James Thomson

 

[Dan Gregory]

John Kane wrote:

> The amount of repairs and theft is suprising, especially the theft.
> From what I remember of the bikes I had not expected them to be that
> popular a target for thieves. I got a kick out of the tourists riding
> them in Casablanca.
When the white provo bikes were liberated in Amsterdam the idea finally
failed to succeed because people stole them. I never understood why,
when it was so easy to take a free bike when you needed one, there were
people who had to keep them to themselves. Probably shut away somewhere.

 

[dgk]

On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:12:39 +0100, Dan Gregory
<[email protected]> wrote:

>John Kane wrote:
>
>> The amount of repairs and theft is suprising, especially the theft.
>> From what I remember of the bikes I had not expected them to be that
>> popular a target for thieves. I got a kick out of the tourists riding
>> them in Casablanca.
>When the white provo bikes were liberated in Amsterdam the idea finally
>failed to succeed because people stole them. I never understood why,
>when it was so easy to take a free bike when you needed one, there were
>people who had to keep them to themselves. Probably shut away somewhere.

Possibly because people are selfish?

 

[John Kane]

On Jun 25, 6:12 pm, Dan Gregory
<[email protected]> wrote:
> John Kane wrote:
> > The amount of repairs and theft is suprising, especially the theft.
> > From what I remember of the bikes I had not expected them to be that
> > popular a target for thieves.  I got a kick out of the tourists riding
> > them in Casablanca.
>
> When the white provo bikes were liberated in Amsterdam the idea finally
> failed to succeed because people stole them. I never understood why,
> when it was so easy to take a free bike when you needed one, there were
> people who had to keep them to themselves. Probably shut away somewhere.

Were they "stolen" or just not returned? In parts of my town you can
see abandoned grocery shopping carts that people without cars seem to
have "borrowed". There does not seem to be any intend to keep the
carts. Of course the store has a nasty cost in recovering them

John Kane Kingston ON Canada