Until Today, I Hated Only One Thing About France

I didn't ride this bike

as interesting as it looks.  Parked outside a boutique in the "Village Suisse" not far from where I'm staying,  it's the kind of bike that's all but impossible to find in the United States. 

 

One thing I love about it is that it's a testament to how a well-made older bike can continue to serve someone, if in a different way from how its previous owner(s) rode it.  

Just about any bike "of a certain age" will need to have its tires replaced. (I must say, though, that even a decade or so ago, I read and heard that owners of Raleigh three-speeds from the sixties or earlier will try any and all things to keep the original Dunlop tires--which, as I understand, were exclusive to Raleigh three-speeds--intact, if not ready for daily use.) Also, if the bike had caliper brakes, it will need new cables and pads.  Chains and pedals also are often damaged, worn or missing.  Finally, if the bike had a leather saddle, it might be dry-rotted or otherwise damaged from not getting the care it needed.

So it's no surprise to see new tires (or a front wheel) on this bike.  As the bike has a coaster brake and, therefore, no derailleur or other shifting mechanism, there weren't any cables to replace.  I don't know what kind saddle originally graced this machine, but it's a bit of a surprise to see something that looks like a Brooks Professional--albeit with holes punched in it--with such upright bars.

I really would have liked to ride that bike.  I mean, really, how can you not love something with a reflector like this

even if it isn't the original?

I couldn't ride this bike. (Well,  I could have, but I don't steal bikes--just lovers and spouses. ;-)) But I did get to borrow one somewhat like it--what seemed to be a French-made Dutch-style city bike--for a day.  

Unfortunately, I neglected to photograph it, but it took me along the Left and Right Banks, and up to another "date" with my friend Jay.

About Velib:  It's been a long time since I've seen a site or service so frustrating to use.  When I typed in my information--including my home address and phone number--in the requested format (phone number with country code selected from drop-down format, the area code and number without any spaces or characters that aren't numerals and my address in the air-mail format), the site "auto corrected" them to the American format:  (1 (212) 555-1212; 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC, 20001, FRANCE) no matter how many times I went back and corrected it. Then, when I tried to buy a pass, the site said it couldn't process my request because my phone number and address weren't in the required format--which I typed in, repeatedly.

For years, I told people that I loved Paris and France, with the exception of Charles de Gaulle Airport. (Then again, how many airports do people actually "love?") Now I can add one other thing about this city and country that I don't love--and, in this case, actually hate:  Velib Metropole, the official name of what everyone calls Velib.

 

Not According To Plan, But I'm Happy

I didn't get a chance to try Velib today, as I'd anticipated.  For one thing, I woke up later than I'd planned. (Then again, last night--or, should I say, this morning--I stayed out later than I expected.)  Then, Jay called:  Isabelle was "invited" to an official function and wouldn't be able to accompany me and him tomorrow, as we'd planned. So he asked if we could see a film and have dinner today.

Of course I accepted:  As much as I wanted to ride, visit museums and such, I want to see them.  (Also, this afternoon brought the first rain of my trip, along with a significant temperature drop.) So we went to an old-school independent movie house--with red velour chairs and a "stage"-- called the Brady.  From what I understand, it's the same theatre in which Francois Truffaut started to view, and make, films.  

The Truffaut connection made sense because we saw "Armageddon Time"--in English, with French subtitles, which I read just to see how some things would translate.  Isabelle is a fan of its director, James Gray and I must say that she has taste.  In some ways, AT reminded me of "Le Quatre Cent Coups" ("The 400 Blows.")  In Truffaut's foundational New Wave film, as in AT, a boy who is misunderstood befriends someone who shares in his misadventures.  And, the final scene of each movies' protagonist had similarly enigmatic expressions upon running away.

After the film, which left all of us--and, it seemed, everyone else in the theatre--stunned, we went to a nearby bistro.  I chose one of the  specials for the day:  a large classic Lyonnaise salad consisting of frisee (a.k.a. curly endive),  lardons (chunky cuts of salt pork that are poached to remove impurities, then fried to a crisp), topped with a poached egg, two wedges of toast topped with a dollop of pate de foie gras and a light vinagrette dressing.  It sounds so simple, but the flavors are intense and as a meal, it's more than satisfying.  And, since I don't eat much meat and most of my animal-protein consumption comes from cheese (by choice), this was a great "splurge."  

This chair was in every one of Picasso's studio spaces.

Anyway, before meeting up with Jay and Isabelle I did manage to sneak in a visit to the Musee Picasso.  Part of the museum, which normally contains much of its permanent collection, was closed.  So, the admission price was cut in half (from 14 to 7 Euros) for the privilege of seeing three special exhibits: one detailing his working methods and spaces and two others showing works by contemporary artists influenced by Picasso.

Picasso

Atassi

Franco-Belgian painter Farah Atassi, who is of Syrian descent, takes Picasso's distortions of the human (especially different) direction.  While he tended to give his subjects oversize limbs and to exaggerate features of the face and body, she pares the limbs of her bathers, dancers and models down to angular forms, as if to accentuate only their function--which could mean anything from actually propelling or supporting the body to simply creating another form for the artist.  The bodies took on, not just the form, but the essence of their subjects:  the bathers' torsos were enlarged but wavy, if you will, while the dancers' bodies were rounded or angled by whether they were dancing, reclining or sitting.  And the models' bodies, like their limbs and heads, were just props for the artist, though one image suggests a "burining."

On the other hand, Pierre Moignard became obsessed with the drawings Picasso made during the last year of his life.  Some of his work consists of those drawings, or parts of them, superimposed on his own paintings. Is he trying to show how Picasso might have "finished" or "continued" those works--if, indeed, they are not complete?

Then again, what do we mean by "complete?"  I had planned to ride today, but didn't.  But the day was fulfilling, which is pretty good working definition of completeness, at least for me.

For Once, Don't Listen To The Talking Heads!

Six years ago, Paris drained its Canal Saint-Martin to clean it, as the city does every fifteen years or so. Although the canal now bisects fashionable streets with chic cafes and shops, it was once bisected a rather gritty working-class area.  But, perhaps to no-one's surprise, the most commonly-found objects found in every canal-draining were wine bottles.

And the second-most common?  Bicycles.  The only difference is that in the most recent cleaning, many of the bikes came from Velib, the City of Light's share program.

Bicycle uncovered during most recent draining of the Canal Saint-Martin.  Photo by Yoan Valat for EPA.

The company that ran Rome's bike-share program abruptly ended its contract because so many of the bikes ended up in the Tiber.  Not exactly what Remus and Romulus had in mind, is it?

Amsterdam has had to resort to "fietsen vissen"--bicycle fishing--because bikes were piled so high in the city's canals that they scraped the flat-bottomed boats.  At one time, freelance scavengers picked them up on poles and sold them for scrap.  In the 1960's, the city's water agency assumed responsibility for the "harvest."  Now a corps of municipal workers trawl for the submerged bikes on boats equipped with cranes attached to hydraulic claw grapples.  The bikes are hauled  to scrapyards for recycling where, according to urban legend, they become beer cans. (Think about that the next time you grab a Heineken or Amstel!)

The phenomenon of bikes "sleeping with the fishes" (I grew up in a Mafia neighborhood. Gotta problem widdat?)  isn't limited to European cities.  In Tokyo, officials decided to drain a large pond in the middle of Inokashira Park to rid it of a non-native species of fish that was causing environmental damage. Their work uncovered another species that wasn't native to the pond:  bicycles.  And, in February 2019, a Citibike appeared--covered with barnacles and blisters--appeared overnight in an Upper West Side docking station. A Hudson River conservancy group expert estimated that evidence--including "oysters on the handlebars" (Upper West Siders pay good money for such things!)--indicated that the machine met its fate in the Hudson the pervious August, or possibly June.

Jody Rosen has just written an article on this phenomenon for the Guardian. It speculates on some of the reasons why so many bikes end up in waterways.  Some are dumped when by fleeing criminals--who are as likely as not to have stolen the bike they're drowning.  Others are tossed or accidentally ridden into the water by drunken revelers.  (Could recycling be contributing, if unintentionally, to bikes ending up in Amsterdam's canals?)  And there are a few instances of folks who "ended it all" by riding into murky waters, as one woman did after handcuffing herself to her machine.

But, as Rosen points out, a bicycle--especially one whose owner is unknown or a corporate entity--is an easy target for people taking out their frustrations.  I suspect that at least a few share bikes were tossed into canals, rivers, lakes and other bodies of water by folks--more than likely, young--who feel lost, alienated, abandoned or simply ignored by their societies, cultures or institutions that control their lives, and over which they feel they have no control.

As a lifelong cyclist, I cannot imagine myself tossing a bike that did nothing wrong to me into the water.  And, as an environmentally-conscious person, I cannot condone throwing anything into a body of water that its native species can't eat.  But, as we've seen, these days, where there are bikes, there are e-bikes.  That, unfortunately, includes waterways, where e-bikes and mopeds are even more of a hazard because of the rare metals and chemicals used in batteries and other components.  

So, if you have a bike, e-bike, moped or scooter you want to get rid of, sell it or donate it. But please don't follow the advice of a Talking Heads song!

From The Water To The Port

Three years ago, the Canal St. Martin was drained.  The City of Paris does that about every ten or fifteen years.

In dredgings past (sounds like a series of old therapy sessions!), the "treasures" at the bottom of the Canal included home furnishings, street signs, gold coins(!), World War I shells and even a car.  But the most recent drainage served as a sort of geological record of changes in the neighborhood around the canal--mostly the 10th Arrondissement--and in the City of Light itself.

The streets around the waterway have become the sites of bars, restaurants and clubs.  (The Bataclan, site of a mass shooting during a November 2015 concert, stands literally steps from the canal.)  The area is home to "Bobos"--a term combining "bohemian" and "bourgeois".  They are probably the Parisian equivalent of hipsters. At any rate, they share many of the same tastes with their Brooklyn counterparts.  

They include a thirst for craft beers (French as well as American) and wines.  Empty bottles and cans bearing those labels littered the bottom of the canal when it was dredged. So did another passion of that evanescent group:  bicycles--specifically, those from Velib, the city's bike-share service.

As far as I know, neither of the city's two canals--the Harlem River Ship Canal and the Gowanus Canal--has ever been drained.  Interestingly, the Gowanus--one of the most toxic waterways in the United States--flows, like the St. Martin, through a hipsterizing (Think of it as the hipster equivalent of gentrifying.) neighborhood.  According to an urban legend, the Mafia used to dump their "hits" in the Gowanus because the bodies would dissolve.  

Which brings me to this question:  Could a Citibike survive a dive into a city canal?

Somehow I doubt it would be even as intact as the bike in the photo.  That Citibike, missing since September 2017, showed up in the bike-share service's port at 73rd Street and Riverside Drive, where filmmaker Ted Geoghegan found it.  Its coating of barnacles and mud indicates that it spent time in the Hudson River--which, at that point, is actually an estuary.  

No one, it seems, can explain how it got from the river (or wherever it was) to the bike dock?  Did a thief take it, dump it, feel guilty and dive into the water to fetch it?  That seems unlikely because, well, that's not what thieves usually do, but also because if the thief did indeed dump the bike in the river, he or she wouldn't have found it in the same spot, or anywhere nearby.  The more likely scenario is that some boater or fisher found it and, not knowing what else to do, quietly brought it to the bike port.

That bike is more than likely beyond repair.  Spending almost any amount of time in the water would have destroyed the bike's electronics, and the growth on the rest of the bike indicates that the brackish water has corroded the rest of the bike so that it's structurally unsound, and its moving parts are probably irreparable. 

(Interesting aside:  The Gowanus and Harlem Ship are the only two canals in New York City today. In the 17th Century, however, lower Manhattan was laced with canals. That's not surprising when you realize the area was then called Nieuw Amsterdam, and the Dutch settlers were following a model of urban planning for which their capital is famous.)

At The Home Of A Love Child And Her Love Child

Look at this photo:

Can you guess where I've landed?

I'll give you another clue:

Once again, I'm in "the City of LIght."  I decided that the off-season fares made it worthwhile to come here for a week and visit my friends.

I thought about going to other places--say, Scotland or England or Finland--but it's cold here, and I can only imagine what the weather is like in those places.  Normally, I don't mind the cold, but I think this time it's a shock, given that I experienced summer-like weather last week in Florida.

Anyway, I got to my hotel--in the neighborhood where I took the photos--well before check-in time.  The clerk allowed me to leave my bag, and I went for a walk to my favorite building in this city.

Sacre-Coeur de Montmartre is only a 15 minute walk from the hotel but seems even closer.  I have long believed that it's the most Parisian of buildings because it's not typically Parisian.  At least, it seems to belong in this city because, well, it really couldn't be anyplace else.  I mean, in what other city could a Roman Catholic Cathedral have domes that look more like those of a mosque?

Back when it was constructed, it must have been even more out of character for the area, which was then semi-rural, and the city.  These days, however, it's hard to find anyone who can imagine Paris without it.  I know I can't.  And the artists who lived and worked in the area certainly couldn't.

One reason why artists flocked to the neighborhood is that it was, believe it or not, cheap.  Even more important, though, is the light in and around it: subtle, but not muted, and dreamy if not somnambulent.  Best of all, on that hill, you can see the light of the rest of the city unfolding like a video of the weather on a screen of linen haze.  Its movement is slower than that of the city, at least when one walks or cycles the streets, but is a kind of film (rather than a mirror) of the city's life force.

What I have tried to explain makes even more sense after a visit to the Musee de Montmartre, located in the oldest house in the neighborhood.  It's also where Maurice Utrillo and his mother, Suzanne Valadon, had their studio.

The man whose last name he inherited--a Catalan painter--acknowledged Maurice but really wasn't in his life.  Valadon--ironically, a love child herself--would later marry Andre Utter, who was Maurice's best friend and twenty years her junior.

All of this sounds like something you might expect from artists living the bohemian life in what was then the most bohemian part of the western world's artistic capital. So are many other aspects of their tumultuous lives, which included alcoholism and nervous breakdowns.  But what you might not expect is that Utrillo, who was born just steps from the Sacre Coeur and spent almost his entire life within a few minutes' walk from it, spent considerable time in the cathedral, and not only for aesthetic reasons:  He actually had a sincere faith and believed that the cathedral and its environs were suffused with spiritual powers. Some might say that it was part of his search for serenity, or at least comfort.  

Now, I'm not religious, but I can see why people like Utrillo and Valadon--along with other artists--were drawn to the Sacre Couer and its environs.  An artist is a kind of bastard child who doesn't quite fit into the conventions of their society--and, from the story presented at the museum (as well as what I've read over the years), the neighborhood was removed, physically as well as mentally, from bourgeois expectations.

All right, I'll stop theorizing.  All I'll say is that the walk to and from the Sacre-Coeur--and the walk up and down the hill--was a great way to spend the first hours of my latest visit to Paris.  Between the walking and climbing, and my jet lag, I was ready to sleep when I got back to the hotel!

As for cycling:  I haven't done any yet.  During my previous two visits to Paris, I rented a bike (from Paris Bike Tour) because I don't want to worry about finding docking stations and I figured (correctly) that a rental bike would be of better quality and better-maintained.  I'll probably go to PBT tomorrow.

I thought about using Velib, the city's bike-share program, but I saw only one docking station--and, worse, only one of their bikes-- today.  Turns out, there are far fewer of those bikes and stations than there were in the summers of 2015 and 2016.  A little more than a year ago, JC Decaux's contract to run the program expired, and a new company took over and instituted a new system.  Now users complain that it's not only more difficult to find a dock and bike, it's sometimes "impossible" to find a dock that works properly when you're trying to return the bike.  That often results in a half-hour ride (which is free) turning into a two-hour rental.  Worst of all, some users have said that the 300 Euro deposit the system charged their credit cards wasn't returned to them even after the bike was returned.

Anyway, I look forward to riding, meeting my friends and visiting a museum or two.

Whenever They Drain The Canal...

I remember hearing about it when I was in Paris last year:  the Canal St. Martin was drained.

Even before the neighborhoods lining it became fashionable, I enjoyed walking along its banks, or cycling the streets that ran alongside it.  The old houses and industrial buildings that stand beside it made it seem more like the Paris of my imagination than the sites along the Seine did.

The canal connects the Seine with the Canal de l'Ourcq, which in turn connects with the Marne River north of the city.  From what I understand, St. Martin is drained every fifteen years or so.  I've often thought the detritus found at the bottom could tell some interesting stories.

It was drained in January of last year and, the last time before that, in 2001.  As the millenium began, the 10th Arrondissement--through which much of the canal runs--was in its transition from a working-class neighborhood to an area full of some of the most interesting galleries and trendiest cafes in the City of Light.  (Indeed, it was this area that suffered the November 2015 terrorist attacks.)


In this country, we call it "gentrification."  But to the folks who cleaned out the canal, it meant more and different kinds of refuse.

As for "different kinds", you only have to think of one thing that Paris had by 2016 but not in 2001:

Unfortunately, in the early days of Velib--Paris' bicycle share program--a number of the bikes were stolen.  Guess where they ended up?

Now, bicycles have been dumped in the canal probably since, well, there were bicycles in Paris.  So have motorbikes, house furnishings and even an old camera or two.  But if some archaeologist or historian were to study St. Martin's detritus, what would they learn from finding Velib bikes?

Probably the same things they'd learn from comparing the wine bottles tossed into the canal in one period with those of another.    One thing is for sure: You don't see any of it in Amelie or any of Alfred Sisley's paintings!

Coming To My Town?

I am not surprised.

Over the past few weeks, I've written about "Uber for Bicycles"--or, if you like, Citibike (or Velib or Bixi or whatever bike share program you care to name) without the docks or ports.

Such services have become very popular in a few Chinese cities where, apparently, people are getting back to bikes.  The success of such services has caused their operators--Mobike and Ofo, mainly--to eye overseas expansion.  

Turns out, Mobike as well as a few other "rogue" companies are planning to "dump thousands of bicycles on Big Apple streets," as the New York Post exclaimed with the sort of hyperbolic vitriol, or vitriolic hyperbole, on which the Post seems to have a patent.

Mobikes in Shanghai. Photo by Johannes Eisele, from Getty Images.

Those companies are setting their sights on parts of the city not currently served by Citibike--mainly, Manhattan north of 110th Street and Staten Island.  The latter could be particularly fertile territory for a bike-share service, as the city's subway system doesn't run there and there are fewer bus lines and other mass transportation options than exist in the other boroughs.  Bike shares could be particularly useful for commuters and others who ride the Staten Island Ferry to and from Manhattan.

And, I must say, that I like the idea of a port- or dock-free share service.  At the same time, I share the concern expressed by Post editors and others who worry that bikes will be "strewn" all over city sidewalks and streets, as they are in Chinese cities. Those problems, however, could be avoided with sensible regulation.  With such regulation, I think it would be easier to pre-empt such bike-blocked streets and sidewalks because as narrow as some streets in this town are, I would guess they're still wider than those in China, particularly in the old central areas of that country's cities.

(As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I've never been to China.  But I know that New York streets are wider than those in Europe which are, from what I'm told, wider than some of their counterparts in Chinese cities.)

Anyway, I think "Uber for Bikes" is indeed coming to my hometown.  We just need to learn from the experiences of those cities that already have it and develop the right policies for it.

This Bike Share Program Could Come Up Roses

Portland, Oregon is often called the most "bike-friendly" city in the US.  I have never been there, but from what I've read and heard, it probably deserves that designation.

Ironically, it doesn't have a bike share program.  That may soon change.  Today, Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioners Nick Fish (great name, huh?) and Steve Novick have announced a proposal that could make 600 bikes available for public use.

Sometimes "coming to the party" later can have its advantages.  Bike share programs in New York, Paris and other cities had a "learning curve" that Portland won't have:  They had to work out technical problems and find ways to combat problems such as the theft of the programs' bikes.  The folks in Portland will be able to draw upon what their peers in the Big Apple, the City of Light and other places have learned from their experiences with their bike share programs.

One of those problems is what deters folks like me from using Citibike, Velib or other similar programs:  What to do if there's no bike port in sight.  In Paris, I noticed, it probably wouldn't have been much of a problem, as the ports seemed to be everywhere in the city and in points beyond. (Still, I prefer to have a bike for which I don't have to think about such things.  I'd rent again from Paris Bike Tour or bring my own bike.)  However, here in New York, the ports were found, until recently, only in lower Manhattan and in the Brooklyn neighborhoods closest to Manhattan (e.g., Williamsburg).  So, if I were to ride, say, from one of those places to my apartment, or to work, I would almost certainly exceed the time limit.  Taking longer recreational rides would almost certainly be out of the question, let alone using a Citibike to go to museums, galleries and such.

In Portland, I imagine the problem I described would be even more acute, as it's more of a sprawling city than New York or Paris, or others--like Boston and Montreal--that have bike share programs.

Cyclists departing Boston's City Hall plaza to help launch Hubway--the city's bike share program in July 2011.

According to the Portland Bureau of Transportation, there are 3000 bike racks in the City of Roses.  According to John Brady, the PBT's Director of Communications, the bikes in the program would include a locking technology that work on any of those racks--in effect turning them into docking stations. 

That, I think, could go a long way toward turning a bike share program in Portland--or in many other cities--into a truly viable part of the transportation system.  A city that doesn't have many bike racks could probably install them for a good deal less money than special bike ports.  Also, there probably would be less objection to regular bike racks than to the ports, which take up a lot more room.  Their smaller size and relative ease of installation would also make them easier to build in, or next to, train and bus stations or municipal parking lots.

 

A Comparison Of Bike Share And Subway Systems: Paris And New York

Although I didn't use Velib when I was in Paris, I couldn't help but to marvel at some aspects of it.

For one, it seemed that quite a few riders on Velib bikes weren't tourists.  Now, here in New York, some people ride Citibikes to and from work, while others who don't own bikes sometimes take out those familiar blue bikes for spins around the neighborhood.  But such riders seemed more common on Paris streets.

But what really impressed me is how well-covered the city is:  One doesn't have to go more than a few blocks, even in the outlying arrondissements, to find a Velib port.  Also, one can find those ports and bikes in areas outside Paris proper:  I saw them in Vincennes, and along the way between the famous Chateau and the City of Light.  I also spotted the ports and bikes in several towns along the way to Versailles.

By contrast, the borough of Queens got its first Citibike stations earlier this month, in Long Island City--not very far from where I live.  Critics say that the new port doesn't really represent an expansion into the Borough of Homes because the ports are next to the subway stations closest to Manhattan, and on the Queens side of the Queensborough/59th Street Bridge.  Many people regard Long Island City (and my 'hood of Astoria) as satellites of Manhattan rather than true Queens neighborhoods.

The same criticism can be made, I think, about the placement of Citibike stations in Brooklyn:  Williamsburg, right next to the eponymous bridge that links it to Manhattan, was the first non-Manhattan neighborhood to get Citibike.  Nobody expects to see the blue bikes in the far southeastern and southwestern neighborhoods of the borough any time soon.  And it would be more than surprising if the bike share program ever came to Staten Island at all.

To be fair, Velib started in 2007, while the first Citibikes didn't roll down city streets until two years ago.  Still, the difference in how each program covers its city reflects another pattern in each city's transportation infrastructure.

You see, all of the neighborhoods that have, or are getting, Citibikes, are ones that are well-served by New York City's subway and bus systems.  They have major lines linking them to midtown and downtown Manhattan, and they are the sorts of neighborhoods in which many people (myself included) live car-free.



New York City Subway map, 2015.  Manhattan is the island to the left; Staten Island is the one in the inset.  Brooklyn and Queens are to the right, and the Bronx is at the top. 

There are large swaths of the city that have no mass transportation at all.  None of the subways cross the city lines into New Jersey, Long Island or Westchester County, and most of the eastern half of Queens--as well as parts of southwestern and southeastern Brooklyn--have never had subway service.  Kings Plaza Mall, the largest retail area in Brooklyn, is about seven kilometers from the nearest subway stop.  So is JFK International Airport--which, until five years ago, didn't even have a light-rail link to the city's subways or the Long Island Rail Road.

Even in Manhattan, there are transportation "deserts", if you will.  One reason for that is that most of the subway lines on the island run parallel to each other, in  north-south ("uptown-downtown" in Big Apple parlance) routes.  Only two lines run across Manhattan:  the #7 train under 42nd Street and the "L" under 14th Street.  The lines that enter Manhattan from Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx become part of the "uptown/downtown" grid once they reach Manhattan.



Paris Metro map

In Paris, by contrast, the lines are spread in patterns that have been likened to the circulatory system of the human body.  One result is that no point within the City of Light is more than 500 meters (about 1/3 mile, or six New York City blocks) from a Metro station.  Some of the inner suburbs, such as Levallois-Perret, are nearly as well-served as central Paris.  Even so, there are proposals to not only add service within the city and inner suburbs, but to extend several lines further out.

I find it fascinating that both rapid transit and bike sharing systems in New York and Paris reflect the history of planning (or, in some cases, lack thereof) in each city. 

In my hometown, the first subway lines were built by private financiers who operated them, under city contract, in much the same way they would conduct their other businesses.  All of the city's transit lines were not brought under the umbrella of one governmental organization until the 1950's.  In a similar fashion, the city's bike share program, while initiated by the city, is run by Citibank--which can make (or lose) money as it could with its banking, real estate and other businesses. 

On the other hand, the Paris Metro system was centrally planned from the beginning.  That, I believe, is why lines aren't duplicated and, if you want to transfer from one line to another, you don't have to go all the way to the other end of town, as switching trains in New York sometimes necessitates.  And, interestingly, Velib was started by the Mairie  (City Hall) of Paris, which still owns the system although JC Decaux operates it.

Knowing all of this, I don't feel I'm being cynical or pessimistic in saying that Velib will be in Orleans before Citibike comes to Staten Island!

 

If We Want Bike Share To Work In New York

The buzz in New York City cycling (and other) circles is about the Bike Share program, which is scheduled to begin by the end of this month.

About 300 kiosks have been set up; the number is expected to double over the next few years.  Perhaps in response to complaints about them, the kiosks are movable.  In Paris and London, where two of the earliest bike-share programs began, the kiosks were trenched into the ground, making them difficult to maneuver or remove.  The Big Apple instead took its construction cues from Montreal, where the kiosks are anchored by nothing more than their own weight. Thus, spaces can be moved or removed for construction or emergencies.

Commuter at Capital Bikeshare kiosk in Washington, DC. From Velojoy

Some people questioned the wisdom of adding so many more bikes to the city's streets.  I, for one, think questions should have been directed at the idea of trying to shoehorn as many motorized vehicles as possible into the city's streets--which seemed to be the Department of Transportation's guiding policy for decades.  It's not the number of bikes on the street that increases the risk of injury or death, as some allege.

Such critics point to the three cyclists who were killed during Velib's first year of operation in the City of Light.  Rather than to blame a bike-share program--for, essentially, getting people to abandon their pre-Velib modes of transportation--more attention needs to be paid to the conditions in which urban cyclists ride.

Just as Parisian cyclists learned about the dangers of turning trucks, truck drivers learned to pay more attention to cyclists--and to warn them about "blind spots."  After three years of cycling in Paris and three decades in New York, as well as riding elsewhere, I honestly believe that most truck drivers are courteous and do their best to drive as safely as possible.  At least, that has been my experience with them.  (I'll admit that my view might be colored by the fact that relatives of mine have driven for a living.)  However, it doesn't hurt to remind them that they share the streets with cyclists and that sometimes they are steering their big rigs across the paths of bike lanes.  

The Department of Transportation--and, sadly, local bike-advocacy organizations like Transportation Alternatives--have never done that.  Rather, they have focused their efforts to cautioning cyclists about the dangers trucks pose to them. While such warnings are justified and useful, I think the other side of the story must be presented.

Also, having cycled in London, Boston and Montreal (all of which now have bike-share programs), as well as Paris, New York and other cities, I can say that my hometown has some of the worst street conditions in the developed world.  One of the running jokes is that some potholes have their own ZIP Codes; some in the tonier neighborhoods have elevators and concierge service.  Seriously, I have seen cyclists lose their balance and even fall because they were rattled and bounced on road surfaces that are more lunar than terrestrial. In one instance, a woman's front wheel was caught in a pothole when she dodged an opening car door. Fortunately, she suffered nothing worse than a few scrapes and a couple of bruises.

So, while I applaud the Bike Share program, I still think that the Department of Transportation need to look at what else other cities did--whether in education, infrastructure repairs or other areas--as they implemented their bike share programs.  Otherwise, the program will have a similar effect to the construction of bike lanes:  It might get more people to ride, but it won't make for a safer, let alone more bike-friendly,environment.