London recently had its second Freewheel event - a festival of cycling where the roads from the Palace to the City are shut down to anything but bicycles. It’s a great event, but it got me thinking about how accessible cycling is in London.
A little while ago I was in Paris and saw their hugely successful Velib scheme in action. I was amazed by how many people were using it (this was Paris in August…when nobody’s supposed to be there): everywhere you’d see the distinctive grey bikes whizz past. I’d read about how successful the scheme was, but statistics aren’t really a match for seeing the reality of it. Vélib (Vélo-Liberté) has literally started a cycling revolution in Paris by making bikes extremely accessible and hassle-free.
London has OYBike. It’s meant to be the cycling equivalent of a car club (those have caught on quite well in London), but, frankly, doesn’t match up to Velib. The bikes may not be as clunky or plastic as the Velib bike, but neither are they as sophisticated or practical. The main problem is that there just aren’t any in Central London. Velib has been successful because they are available all over the Paris - including (usefully) right in the middle of town. Until the Mayor’s office sorts out whether it will support such schemes (previous mayor, Ken Livingstone had been considering bringing a Velib-style scheme here) I doubt it will gain more traction.
Interestingly, Velib is a strange kind of public/private partnership. The operator, JCDecaux is more commonly known for outdoor advertising, but did a deal with the city of Paris: they got to have 1628 billboards on city owned land and, in return, provided the Velib scheme to the city for 10 years. Since early 2007, the scheme reckons that cycle use in the city has increased 24% (and accidents have increased 7%). Not too bad.
