Saving the Planet One Bicycle at a Time

Two years ago, Paris introduced the world's largest "bicycle transit system" called Vélib. Vélib seamlessly combines scale and functionality by providing more than 20,000 bikes and 1,451 docking stations within 1,000 feet of each other. In general, bike-share programs have proven to increase public transportation options at a relatively low cost to the city. Any registered user can "borrow" a bike from a station for a small fee and return it to any other station in the system.


In Paris, Vélib has saved the city 10 million kilometers in car trips-- roughly equal to $10 million in savings. With 200,000 Parisians paying the city $50 each for an annual Velib pass, this has yielded an additional $10 million in revenues. Because of the increase in environmentally-friendly bicycling, Paris has seen traffic ease tremendously and experienced improvements in air quality.

Other countries are also beginning to adopt this novel travel concept. Australia has recently launched a three-week trial with 30 bikes being made available from five locations around the city, called Common Bike. In the United States, the District of Columbia launched the Smart Bike Program last year, joining the ranks of Barcelona and Paris. Hopefully we will see such bicycle-sharing programs sprout in all cities in the country. Maybe in order to go forward in terms of bettering the environment, we need go backwards-- to look back to our primary modes of transportation.