A weekend sans métro

As anyone who's been to Paris will tell you, the best way to move around in the city is the métro, right? WRONG!

The nouvelle mode in Paris is to Velib' your way accross town. Everywhere you go you'll see people velib'ing their way to work, to the theater, to go shopping, to visit, etc. At first I was more than a little skeptic of this new "craze"... but, like with the snails, I decided to try it once and I have to say that I am now hooked.

But what exactly is Velib' ?

Velib' stands for Velo Liberté (bycicle liberty) and that's basically what it is : public transportation via bycicle that Paris City Hall has put into practice this summer. Basically, the mayor of Paris (a wellknown ecologist) is hoping that the more people travel by bike, the less cars and other polluting engins they'll be on the streets of Paris. For this, the mairie has installed all across town hundreds of "velib' parking stations" (like the one on the right) filled with ready to use bikes.

The way it works is you walk up to your nearest velib' station, swipe your metro pass at the terminal which will unlock a bike and you're on your way. When you reach your destination you head to the nearest velib' station and drop off your bike for it to be used by someone else. The first 30 minutes of your déplacement are free and after the 1st half hour you're charged 1 euro every 30 mins. This is to encourage people to use it as means of transportation and not as an all-day bike rental service.

I have to say I wasn't so sure this was going to work... the métro is such an institution in this city and driving a car on the streets of Paris usually seems dangerous enough... let alone cycling.... but suddenly we started to notice a whole lot of bike-only lanes on the streets and people in their suits, briefcases in the little baskets, peddelling their way home after work.... Paris has been swarmed with the Velib' craze!!!


Everyone is Velib'ing ... it's simply too convenient... no more smelly métro on a sunny day, no more changing subway lines walking through long underground halls, no more waiting 15 minutes at the bus stop for the bus to arrive, no more driving for hours to find a parking spot....

What's even more amazing is that suddenly riding a bike has become so cool that people who already own bikes are taking them out of their caves and using them again... along with Velib stations popping up like champignons accross town, parking spots for private bikes are also being built all over the city so people no longer have to worry about where to park their bikes...

I myself have been velib'ing every morning to work and it's 15 mintues faster than my regular métro commute!! :D

Victim of its own success....

The downside of Velib'ing is that it's so popular that sometimes you'll reach your destination and find that the Velib station is full already. This usually happens when going to the popular destinations like malls, turistic places or fashionable neighbourhoods.... In this case, you must peddle to the next station (usually there's one every 300 meters) or else wait for someone to come and pick up a bike....


The opposite is also true (and equally frustrating)... you'll be in a hurry to get going and arrive to your regular station to find that no bikes are available! ARGHH!!! Back to the métro then....