The London Model is Dead. Time to Look at Paris.

9:23 AM EDT on July 18, 2007

David Haskell, executive director of the Forum for Urban Design, and organizer of last week's New York Bike-Share Project demonstration in Soho, says it's time for New York City to ditch the London model and take a closer look at the traffic-reduction techniques Paris has implemented without congestion pricing. An op/ed in today's New York Times focuses on one aspect of the Paris approach, bike-sharing:

If it turns out that New Yorkers are not yet prepared to embracecongestion pricing, and if Albany remains its intransigent self, Mr.Bloomberg should get over his fascination with London — and lookinstead at what’s happening in Paris.
Last week, BertrandDelanoë, Paris’s maverick and popular mayor, introduced the world’slargest and most ambitious bike-share program: 10,600 bikes (scaling upto 20,600 by the end of the year) available at 750 “docking stations”situated every 1,000 feet. With a swipe of a credit card and a modestfee, Parisians (and tourists) can now pick up or drop off a bike in anyneighborhood in the city. Riders no longer need to worry about storingtheir bikes in tiny apartments. The program’s high-tech stations maketheft virtually impossible. And with about twice as many bike stationsas Métro stops, a free bike is pretty much always within reach.
NewYork’s subways and buses are already at capacity, and as we prepare toadd one million new residents by 2030, our existing mass transit willrequire improvements that will take years (if not generations) to putin place. Mr. Bloomberg has fewer than 1,000 days left as mayor. Hisbest chance at securing an environmentalist legacy is to embracebike-sharing.

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

The London Model is Dead. Time to Look at Paris.

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