One of my favorite things

Yesterday, Louis mentioned Velib', Paris' extra-awesome bike-sharing program. Today, I'm going to show/tell you more about it!

This is a photo (above) of a Velib' pick-up/drop-off area at night. This picture was taken just as Paris was rolling out the bike sharing system (15 July 2007, according to Wikipedia). Clearly, the program was a huge success - at this station, ALL the bikes were out and about.

Because we were visiting Paris just as the bikes were being let loose, we often saw trucks full of eager bikes heading to all corners of the city. 

Velib' has certainly caught the attention of folks in other major cities around the world. Just after the launch, Agnes Poirier of The Guardian (UK) mused: "What the philosopher Roland Barthes described as the true epic dimension of cycling can now be experienced by millions of ordinary citizens living in the same city. Setting a different pace of living, these riders create a new harmony, smoothing the rough edges of modernity, taming the flow of the polluting cars around them."

I'm not sure that Parisian drivers can be tamed by anything, but I'm looking forward to riding the streets of Paris on my very own shared bike.