Regarding: The New York Times, October 31, 2009, “French Ideal of Bicycle-Sharing Meets Reality”
Dear Editor,
As an American who has recently returned from living in France, I definitely agree that France’s Vélib program has been fraught with problems. However, this in not the case in Lyon, where my wife and I lived earlier this year. In fact, France’s second city — which was the first French city to start a bike-sharing program (“Vélo’v“), two years before Paris — has had no such problems. But it seems to me that either a combination of lack of enforcement, Parisians’ character, and/or significantly larger size of their program must have something to do with their propensity to damage the bikes. Without trying to sound haughty, in Lyon, I never observed vandalism with the Vélo’v system — and I used it frequently! — anywhere close to the scale of the described problems with Vélib. With public bike sharing starting to come to North America (Montreal, Washington, D.C., San Francisco) I hope that North American cities like are not scared off by this story of vandalism and instead look to other European cities where such a program does work well.
Sincerely,
Cyrus Farivar
Oakland, Calif.
Stories of disaster are much more appealing to write about, as we well know. Success is harder to quantify, and is often anecdotal if good statistics aren’t kept. But vandalism! Despair! Ruin!
I have visited Paris a couple of times, and thought there’s a unique character there I haven’t found in any other city (including in France).