Velo Love--Paris, France

So there is this amazing bike rental system in Paris that I think every city in the world should adopt. I have been biking my butt off all over the city once Lucie introduced me to them (ok mostly I was with her, but I was by myself some too.) There are bike stands all over the city with these special bikes and all you have to do is have a bank card (preferably one that works, mine wouldn't, Lucie helped me out)

and you promise to pay 150 euros if you steal the bike, then you get a little card and Voila, grab a good bike. You can bike for free for up to 30 minutes, and when you're finished, just hook the bike back into another of the little bike stands, which are all over the city. If you're almost to 30 minutes and don't want to start paying for the bike, just hook it back up to a stand nearby for a minute or two, then grab a different bike for another 30 minutes. Isn't that sweet? I shouldn't even have to ask.

An added bonus to this system is the way bike lanes have been integrated into every part of the roadways. Bikes go along the right side of the road sharing with the bus lanes which are often separated with a concrete barrier from the regular lanes, or sometimes there are bike lanes along the sidewalk. Its all really well marked, and because of the popularity of these bikes, cars are all used to watching for them all the time. Paris introduced this system 4 or 5 years ago, and since then all larger French cities now have these bikes. I think the rest of the world should follow suit.

As an addendum, since I actually wrote this a few weeks ago, after being in other cities with similar systems like this (Rome for example) Paris' system is definitely the best integrated and seems to be most widely used. You see people everywhere riding these very industrial looking grey bikes that look impossible to break.  They had the same thing in Roma, but there is no room to bike, plus all the streets are cobblestone and narrow, and we never actually saw any bikes on the racks.  In Paris people actually use them, or in some cases, 2 people use one.