Bicycle Sharing Beauty
Vélib’, short for vélo libre, free bike, is an unparalleled success in the industrialized world. According to the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy, more than 1,000,000 people joined the Parisian bicycle sharing program in its first three weeks of existence.
What does this tell us? Three key points emerge:
1) A solution need not be perfect in order to bring about a paradigm shift;
2) People are hungry for solutions to a transportation system which is 95% based on fossil fuels; and
3) Urban livability indices are inversely proportional to automobile traffic.
City dwellers on every continent are learning to rely on pedal power and shoe leather at increasing rates and living better as a result.
Given the age of bicycle technology, the impulse to rely more on bicycles and less on cars at first can seem counterintuitive. After all, if bikes are so great, why do most people drive? The answer is that most cities are sorely lacking in bicycle corridors. When they add them, though, such as Bogotá and México City have, cultural enrichment generally follows suit.
Naturally, I advocate an increased reliance on bicycle transportation for environmental reasons but there are cultural and medical benefits, too.
If you do not own a bicycle, get with the program! The future is now!
Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line
Corbett Kroehler
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