Still, there's no mistaking the overwhelming sense of schadenfreude emanating from this new Times story (headline: "French Ideal of Bicycle-Sharing Meets Reality"). Francophobes all over America are relishing the tale of Parisian comeuppance.

But bike-sharing is a global phenomenon. So why we do only seem to read alarming stories about the problems in Paris? Part of the reason appears to be that bike-share operators in other cities have few alarms to sound. In Montreal, 5,000 public bikes are available through the Bixi system, launched earlier this year. Responding to the Times story, a Bixi spokesperson told the Montreal Gazette that theft and vandalism don't affect the system very much:

“Our bikes are very robust and Montrealers have a great respect for the Bixi program,” said Michel Philibert, a spokesperson for Stationnement de Montréal, which oversees the bike rental program.

“Montreal is not Paris. The theft of bikes here is not a major challenge.”

The Bixi operators also brought down theft rates thanks to a technical fix: They reinforced segments of the docking stations, and fewer bikes were stolen.

Vélib showed the world what a bike-share network can accomplish, but the appeal of public bicycle systems has never been limited to Paris or France. In the past few years, cities in China, Brazil, and the United States have launched bike-shares of various size. London is looking at a 6,000 bike system, and Dublin recently launched a network with about 500 bikes. Boston may be on the verge of rolling out the first truly robust American bike-share network. Even in Australia, where it's illegal for anyone to ride without a helmet, bike-share is on the way.

Like any good invention, bike-share tech is going to evolve over time. The first telephone looked like a fat brick with a hole in one end, and there was no way to tell if someone else was calling you. So it makes sense that Vélib has some kinks -- it marked a huge step forward for bike-share systems, on a scale no one had ever tried before. Inspired by the Vélib model, cities all over the world are also trying to improve on it.

In an editorial earlier today, the Daily Breeze, a newspaper covering the area between LAX and the Harbor, praised the city for moving ahead with a car sharing program and studying bike share.  In its own words the Breeze made the case for shared vehicles and managed to do it without calling supporters communists:

With a down economy, people throughout the Los Angeles region are looking for ways to cut costs and save money. Now the city of Los Angeles is working on programs to help folks do that - through the concept of sharing cars and bicycles...

...The program is designed for urban residents who no longer want to be burdened by the costs of car ownership, which include fuel, financing, maintenance, insurance and related taxes. These folks would use a combination of public transit and car sharing to go about their daily lives. They can reserve a car online or by phone in 10 minutes. And with a membership, they can quickly check out cars whose keys are stored in their glove compartments.

After similarly praising and explaining bike share, the editorial then ventured into Streetsblog territory by calling on the city to reduce its take home vehicle fleet and invest in car sharing for downtowners and government offices.

For example, instead of financing city-owned cars for council members, why not just offer them paid Zipcar memberships and access to bikes when why need to travel around the city? After all, if the idea is good for average residents, it should also apply to city employees and elected officials as well, especially when budget cuts are on the horizon.

Is a movement growing to begin to truly pare down the fleet of vehicles that are treated as private property by city employees?  When Mayor Villaraigosa proposed cutting the size of the executive car fleet in 2008, the response was horror and outrage from City Council Members who claimed they were really concerned about the environment.  With the city and state in a full budget crisis, and with a recession slamming Southern Californians the response from our elected leadership might not be so tone deaf it the idea comes up again.

Photos: Sally M and jm3/Flickr

The city has put out a request for proposals to create a bike share program. The proposal envisions a network of 150 stations scattered across the city with 1,500 bicycles available to students, commuters and visitors with the swipe of a card.

Officials eventually hope to expand the network to 600 stations in the greater metropolitan area with 6,000 bikes.

Talk about a turnaround. Boston streets didn't even have any bike lanes until last year. But Mayor Thomas Menino has become an avid cyclist himself, and the city's first bicycle coordinator, Nicole Freedman, is not short on ideas. Good thing they're not afraid to succeed. The Boston announcement stands in marked contrast to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's plan for a pilot bike-share with -- count 'em -- 50 bikes.

For Boston (population ~ 600,000), a system with 1,500 bikes would merit comparison to the flagship bike-share systems in Europe. Barcelona's Bicing, for instance, launched with 3,000 bikes and about 200 stations for a city with more than twice the residents and a land area about 25 percent bigger than Boston. Bike-share is more ubiquitous in Paris, where Vélib supplies about 20,000 bicycles to a city of just over two million inhabitants. (Matthew Roth at Streetsblog SF has a great post about ideal bike-share specs, and promo site B-Cycle provides a slick way to see the optimum numbers for your hometown.)

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. The BBC's portrayal of a mortal threat, they say, is best understood as a negotiating ploy on the part of JCDecaux. (Note that the JCDecaux representative is the only source quoted in that story.)

"Decaux is using media sensationalism in order to obtain more money from the city of Paris," said Denis Baupin, who as Deputy Mayor for Transportation oversaw the Vélib launch in the summer of 2007.

The basic structure of the Vélib contract works like this. JCDecaux runs the whole system in exchange for the rights to 1,600 outdoor displays, making its profit from selling that ad space. The city of Paris keeps the revenue from Vélib user fees, so it can claim to provide the service at no taxpayer expense. Now, with the full Paris network of 20,600 bicycles fully built out, penalties for inadequate maintenance are in the process of taking effect. Hence the hue and cry from JCDecaux.

"It's in large part a PR issue," says Luc Nadal of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. Some aspects of the Vélib contract are still in flux, and the sky-is-falling press coverage gives JCDecaux a stronger hand in those negotiations. "Their bargaining position depends on the public's perception."

Not that bicycle abuse is a phantom problem. It exacts a real toll, but much of that cost has been anticipated and accounted for. Last July, the city of Paris agreed to pay JCDecaux 400 euros for every bike stolen in excess of four percent of the total fleet. Given the enormous popularity of Vélib -- users have taken 42 million rides since its debut -- the cost of those payments is minimal. Using the BBC's figure of 7,800 missing bikes, the pricetag for the city comes to less than 2 million euros annually, out of 20 million euros in user fees.

"It averages out to about 15 stolen per day, out of 80,000 daily users," says Eric Britton, founder of the Paris-based New Mobility Agenda. "It's like skinning your knee."

Not only does the city already pick up a big part of the tab, but JCDecaux reportedly hauls in about 80 million euros per year from its outdoor displays, according to estimates cited by Britton. It's difficult to know the exact figure -- and how much is profit -- because JCDecaux guards the data like a nuclear secret. Even the precise cost of replacing one Vélib bicycle remains unknown to the public. Inquiries we sent to JCDecaux's headquarters in Paris have not been returned.

Public support for Vélib remains unflagging. "Vélib has been totally embraced by Mayor Bertrand Delanoe himself," said Nadal. What politician wouldn't jump at the chance to be identified with a program that enjoys 94 percent satisfaction among constituents?

This is largely a testament to JCDecaux's success in operating the system. According to Baupin's office, however, Vélib maintenance workers report that management has let upkeep slide in order to amplify the perception of vandalism.

JCDecaux's media gamesmanship "is short-sighted," said Baupin, in a statement translated from the French. "One should not lose sight of the remarkable success of this transportation mode due to a slightly underestimated rate of vandalism." 

Then there's the matter of JCDecaux's own self-interest, and whether the rumors and exaggerations will hurt the company's attempts to secure bike-share contracts in other cities. Said Britton: "Why would they run away from a golden goose?"

From this week's Los Angeles County Bike Coalition newsletter comes news that one major employer in Los Angeles is bringing bike sharing for their employees.

Bike Sharing At Good Sam
Good Samaritan Hospital in Downtown Los Angeles has launched a bike-sharing program that allows its approximately 1,500 employees to borrow bicycles for traveling around the hospital campus and nearby destinations between 7 a.m. and dusk. The hospital currently has three bikes available for use, but may expand the program if it proves popular, said Good Samaritan President and CEO Andy Leeka. The bike-sharing plan is meant to complement existing programs at Good Samaritan focused on employee wellness, including on-campus exercise and weight-loss classes and healthy cafeteria food. "We can't really espouse to our community to stay healthy if we don't set the example ourselves," said Leeka, who bikes 30 miles to and from work three times a week. "A bicycle is the most efficient means of transportation out there, and it's non-polluting." Good Samaritan also hosts the annual Blessing of the Bicycles each May.

Speaking of the Bike Coalition, this would be a good time to consider a membership for 2009 as a Holiday Present for that Special Someone in your life.

Photo: Robjtak/flickr

This Friday, as part of their Big Bikes Meeting Volume 2, the Council will consider whether or not to ask LADOT to begin soliciting proposals to bring bike sharing to Los Angeles.  However, based in part on testimony delivered when Chairwoman Greuel first brought up bike sharing, there's a few obstacles mentioned in the LADOT report that the city would need to overcome before bike sharing could be succesful in LA.

The largest obstacle?  The city's disjointed bicycle network.

While the City is in the process of updating its Bicycle plan and the development of a bikeway network, the City still lacks a continuous network to accommodate bicycle use for the bike sharing program.

This simple statement seems to be both a blunt assesment of the city's failure to bring provide comprehensive infrastructure for cyclists, but also bit of bar raising for the Bike Master Plan currently being developed by the city and Alta Planning.

The incomplete bike network isn't the only challenge facing bike sharing.  The report also details the difficulty in placing the new resources, the revenue stream needed to get the program off the ground and the discrepency between insurance requirements involving helmut usage and California State Law.

It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out this Friday.  Chairwoman Wendy Greuel has been a proponent of bike sharing since she saw the transformative effect a well-run system could have at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.  However, Transportation Committee Vice-Chair Tom LaBonge has stated in the past that Los Angeles should invest in other bike priorities before moving forward with bike sharing.

Photo: Los Angeles Streetsblog

Via the Bike-Sharing Blog, this vid shows a modular bike-share station getting set up in what must be record time. It's part of a trial system in Montreal called Bixi (contraction of "bike" and "taxi," rhymes with pixie), which launched last month and is set to ramp up with 2,400 bikes next April. Bike-Sharing Blog's Paul DeMaio explains what sets Bixi apart:

One of the finer aspects of Bixi is how easily its stations can be assembled. There is no demolition of concrete or asphalt for the undergrounding of wires nor the need for an electrical hook-up as Bixi is solar-powered.

Another great thing about this video: The soundtrack combo of 70s-style guitar riffs and Pomp and Circumstance.

An Assistant Helps Adjust a Bike at Denver's Massive, Temporary Bike Share Program for the DNC

Enamored with the awesome bike sharing program she experienced while in Denver, Transportation Committee Chairwoman Wendy Greuel wanted to bring some form of bike sharing to Los Angeles.  Surprisingly, a lot of the feedback from the bicycle community received at yesterday's hearing cautioned that the City of Los Angeles isn't ready for a complete bike sharing system.

Aurisha Smolarski and Dorothy Le suggested that funds that could go towards bike sharing instead be spent on a Sharrows and bike lane program, echoing some of the comments from LACBC Board Members that appeared on Streetsblog yesterday.  Stephen Box and Mark Peterson of the Bike Writer's Collective each suggested that the funding could go into better bike parking and other amenities around the city.  Michelle Mowery, the senior bike coordinator at LADOT, worried that LADOT isn't able to properly administer such a program.

After public comment, Greuel clarified that she wasn't looking for LADOT to administer the program, just explore what the best options for bringing such a program to Los Angeles are.  While a Velib-style city-wide plan is one of the things to look at, so is event specific programs such as Bikes Belong's efforts at the national conventions or micro bike share plans in specific areas such as Hollywood, the Downtown or at stops along LA's major bicycle trails.  Greuel asked LADOT to confer with the other speakers and get back to them in the next couple of months.

The Committee also advanced a motion by Councilman Ed Reyes to reform the way the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Board does business.  While the Board itself had endorsed the changes, LADOT proposed some amendments to the legislation including creating an "emeritus" position on the board for past chairs, having the Department of Recreation and Parks join them in staffing the committee in place of the Department of City Planning and removing the provision creating alternate board members so that the committee will have quorom on a more regular basis.

A motion on today's City Council Transportation Committee Agenda requires LADOT to examine whether or not the city should invest in a bike sharing program similar to those in Paris and Washington, D.C.  For those of you that don't know, bike sharing is a program that provides short-term bike rentals in areas near transit hubs to encourage people to consider taking transit than using a rental bike as an alternative to driving.  The program has been so popular in some urban areas that Bikes Belong brought temporary bike share programs to St. Paul and Denver for the national political conventions.

However, many bike activists and politicians don't believe Los Angeles is ready for a bike sharing program.  Councilman Tom LaBonge told Streetsblog in a late July interview that he believed that we needed to make the streets safer for bicyclists before worrying about programs such as bike sharing.

His view was echoed by two bike advocates we talked to last night.  Long time LACBC board member and member of the city's Bike Advisory Committee, Kent Strumpell who told Streetsblog last evening:

While I am encouraged that the Transportation Committee will be exploring the bike rental concept for LA, conditions here are significantly different from those found in the European cities where the Velib program has been successful.

Dr. Michael Cahn, a UCLA Lecturer in History who has assisted UCLA transportation Services in planning such a Bike Sharing Program, shared a similar sentiment:

...enthusiasm for such programs in LA is misplaced. I believe that there is a political temptation of green-washing, to put the cherry of the bicycle on top of a transportation policy which simply does not accommodate the bicycle...I do hope the feasibility study envisioned by the motion will teach the city planners exactly this: it should send them back to their planners and instruct them to accommodate bikes on our roads (complete streets), start pricing parking to discourage driving, and once that work has been done, a bike sharing program may be considered.

So what do you think, Streetsbloggers?  Is Los Angeles ready to make a leap towards bike sharing, or would it be putting lipstick on the pig that is our bike network?

Cahn's and Strumpell's full statements are available after the jump.

Dr. Michael Cahn:

Thanks for sharing this with us: I have been working on the bike sharing phenomenon for a while, and consider myself a bit of an expert in the area. I have advised UCLA on a similar idea in the course of last year, and I have seen such programs in Europe (Germany, France etc) I am also a Board Member of the LACBC, and it is my personal opinion that enthusiasm for such programs in LA is misplaced. I believe that there is a political temptation of green-washing, to put the cherry of the bicycle on top of a transportation policy which simply does not accommodate the bicycle. If I may continue to mix metaphors, this to chase after the laurels of bike sharing, without biting into the sour apple of proper bicycle infrastructure, without making driving more difficult, and without parking more expensive. Bike-sharing without the massive infrastructure investments which favor cycling and discourage motorized transport, as they have been implemented in Paris with great political energy, is a sham.

I do hope the feasibility study envisioned by the motion will teach the city planners exactly this: it should send them back to their planners and instruct them to accommodate bikes on our roads (complete streets), start pricing parking to discourage driving, and once that work has been done, a bike sharing program may be considered.

Again, it is not the lack of a bicycle which keeps people from cycling, it is the perceived danger of cycling on these roads with these cars that has to be addressed.

Kent Strumpell:

While I am encouraged that the Transportation Committee will be exploring the bike rental concept for LA, conditions here are significantly different from those found in the European cities where the Velib program has been successful. 

There are a few pockets of relatively higher levels of bicycle use in LA, but nothing that compares to the rates of cycling seen in European cities.  

The European cities also have much larger numbers of people who travel primarily by transit and therefore find themselves in central city areas without a car. 

The cities with Velib are also more bicycle friendly than Los Angeles.  So, even though a place like Downtown LA has a high concentration of transit commuters and lots of destinations, the streets there can be intimidating to inexperienced cyclists.

Finally, Europeans are generally more experienced with cycling, so renting a bike will not be a new experience.  In LA, a bike rental program may attract inexperienced cyclists, ill prepared to deal with traffic and other hazards. 

I suspect that these factors will weigh against the city going forward with implementing such a program, though there may be a specific location where a small-scale roll-out is feasible.

The study may well confirm what we already know: that our roads are so inhospitable to cycling that few people consider it a viable alternative.  Deepening the realization of how far we have to go to make cycling a viable choice for most Angelenos may be the most valuable outcome of this study.

Photo: Noggin Nogged/Flickr

Not all that surprising, we suppose, on a news site where the day's top-ranked story is "End of the line for GM's 3800 V-6." And the station's view of cycling gets less strange after the jump.