Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Paris

Bike-Share: Not Just for French Commies

| | 5 Comments
In Montreal, theft is “not a major problem” for the bike-share network. Photo: TreeHugger. The Times ran a piece on Vélib’s growing pains this weekend. The story is more thoroughly reported than the hatchet job we saw from the BBC back in February — no claims that bike-share in Paris will flame out quickly this […]

Reports of Vélib’s Demise Greatly Exaggerated

| | 22 Comments
A recent BBC story describes the severity of theft and vandalism faced by Vélib, Paris's wildly popular bike-share network, as a mortal threat to the system. So is Vélib destined to burn brightly only to flare out after a short time? Hardly. Vélib is here to stay, according to officials and transportation experts familiar with the details of its operations.

Streetfilms: Parisian Bus Rapid Transit

| | 15 Comments
For the third installment in her series of Paris, France Streetfilms, Elizabeth Press checks out Le Mobilien, the Parisian version of Bus Rapid Transit. Le Mobilien features curbside and onboard bus arrival info, mid-street boarding kiosks, a MetroCard-esque payment system, and — perhaps most crucial to its success — lanes that are physically separated from […]

Happy Birthday, Vélib

| | 1 Comment
Here’s another transportation policy success story from France. The Vélib bike-sharing system celebrates its one-year anniversary today. In April, Streetfilms’ Elizabeth Press was in Paris to learn more about it. Here is her video and report: On July 15, 2007 Paris debuted the world’s largest self-service "bicycle transit system" called Vélib outdoing previously designed bike […]

The Latest Innovation From Paris: Cargocycles

| | 15 Comments
Streetsblog contributor Ethan Kent sends along this item from CoolTown Studios, profiling what it calls "the contemporary urban delivery vehicle": So what’s the delivery truck equivalent of the bicycle? Look no further than Paris, the home of 20,000 shared bikes, and there you’ll find La Petite Reine, a delivery company that utilizes a fleet of […]