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Vélib' triggers a world-wide boom for cycling
Throughout the world, towns and cities are competing with each other to introduce City Bike hire schemes in order to improve the quality of life by getting more people cycling. The outstanding success of the Vélib' scheme in Paris [1] has unleashed an envy and enthusiasm to follow suit unprecedented in cycling history.
As part of his policy to reduce motorised traffic in Paris by 40% before 2020, mayor Bertrand Delanoe has put more than 20,000 Vélib' bikes on the city's streets. They are based in over 1,400 bike 'stations' – one every 300 metres! The scheme follows the success of similar projects in Lyon and Bourdeaux.
Available for use by residents and visitors alike, the City Bikes come with baskets to carry everyday items and have mudguards for use no matter what the weather. Users pay a registration fee to use the bikes plus a per-use hire charge. However, the first half-hour is free and that has encouraged heavy use of the bikes for short trips.
Monsieur Delanoe wanted to give Parisians a new sense of “pleasure, freedom, innovation and performance” and he seems to have succeeded. Vélib' was an immediate success and use of the scheme quickly rose to 90,000 journeys a day. When transit strikes hit the city, there were almost 175,000 hirings a day. A victim of its own success, potential users sometimes can't find bikes to use, such is the demand for cycling that has been unleashed. Vélib' has been credited with a fall of 5% in car traffic in Paris.
Cities everywhere now want to follow in the footsteps of Paris. Copenhagen and Barcelona already have hire schemes. Washington DC is starting with just 120 bikes in 10 bike stations but wants to grow it much bigger [2]. London plans at least 6,000 bikes by 2010 with an investment of GBP 75m. Many smaller towns are also launching schemes.
The helmet factor
However, countries with helmet laws could lose out on the benefits from the City Bike revolution. None of the present schemes requires cyclists to use a helmet and none are provided. As well as the practical difficulties of offering helmets to users at each bike station in a sufficient range of sizes, there are health and hygiene issues that make sharing helmets unacceptable.
Head lice can live two days away from a host and are endemic in the western world, especially among children. Fungal scalp infections ("tinea capitis") spread by contact. They are usually caused by fungi of the genera Microsporum and Trichophyton. They may be serious ("kerion") and can result in hair loss (alopecia) or even major skin loss. Then there are the less tangible but real fears people have about not wanting to wear an item of second hand clothing, especially one that has not been washed. Helmets left for days exposed to the elements could grow mould, especially in humid climates.
Just as important, City Bike schemes are the most successful if they are able to capture impromptu journeys on demand, with no pre-planning and the minimum of fuss for the client. The need to carry a helmet around just in case you will want to hire a bike, or to have to mess about adjusting a hired helmet to fit, would kill off a large part of the market.
Washington DC has consciously decided to forget about helmets because of these difficulties and so that it can get as many people as possible using its bikes [2].
Melbourne City Council in Australia is keen to introduce a Vélib' style City Bike scheme, but its plans have foundered on the laws that make helmets compulsory, for it could find no reliable system for supplying safe, free helmets [3].
Vancouver is keen to have a City Bike scheme in place before it hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics. But its helmet law is seen as a potential hitch. Three options being considered are that users would have to pull a shared helmet from a rack, bring their own, or that the law be waived for system users. According to a spokesman for would-be scheme operator TransLink, "I think a lot of people are going to be really reluctant to share helmets.” [4]
Tel Aviv is reported to be seeking 2,000 bikes in 150 stations but the scheme is stuck due to its recent helmet law. [5]
Other cities where there are helmet laws face similar problems. Helmet laws have reduced cycling wherever they have been enacted and enforced. It will be a further bitter blow for their citizens' health and the environment if they now prevent whole communities from joining the City Bikes revolution.
| See also: | The health benefits of cycling |
References
[1] Vélib, Paris. 
[2] Bike sharing gets smart. Time, 12 Jun 2008.
[3]
Helmet laws an obstacle to free bike plan. The Age, 26 Nov 2007.
[4] TransLink mulling bike rental system, Tri-City News, Jun 8 2008.
[5] Bike sharing blog, 5 July 2008
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