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Paris Set for Invasion of Self-Service Bicycles

Expatica.com reports:

Expatica.com reports:

Paris is bracing for a transport revolution later this year with the arrival of more than 20,000 self-service bicycles thanks to a deal between city hall and one of the world’s leading suppliers of urban advertising.

A contract signed Monday with JCDecaux gives the French firm access to more than 1,600 hoardings and other publicity sites, but also requires it to provide a mass system of cheap cycles-for-hire.

By the end of the year JCDecaux has undertaken to set up 1,451 stations, where customers can use swipe-cards to rent some 20,600 cycles for journeys around the capital. The bikes can be deposited at any station, and then picked up by new users.

A similar system has been run by JCDecaux since 2005 in the
southeastern city of Lyon, where city authorities have hailed it as a
major success in the campaign to reduce motor transport.

Examples of Lyon’s bicycle stations are available here.

Photo: Phil Moore/Flickr 

Photo of Jason Varone
Jason Varone battles the streets everyday during a 9 mile commute on his bicycle from downtown Brooklyn to the Upper East Side. In addition to his efforts on Streetsblog, he is an artist making work related to the environment and technology. Examples of his work can be found at www.varonearts.org.

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