Pedal Power in Paris

A new trend is afoot in Paris. Pay-for-Pedal bicycles seem all the rage, available at a self-serve rental station near you. They're environmentally friendly, cheap to rent, and subsidized by advertising.

The concept is not unlike the shared auto services offered by the likes of ZipCar, and others, but this mode of transportation uses pedal power instead of gas power.

For an annual subscription of about $46, leasees use a bike whenever they wish for 30 minutes at a time without extra charges. Use it instead of a cab or the metro to travel to work, to see the sights, to visit friends. The bikes can also be rented for a day or for a week, with a $239 deposit taken from the user's credit card if the bike is not returned. Usage fees over 30 minutes can rise steeply: two hours costs about $11. But 96 percent of all rides are less than 30 minutes, because bikes can be returned to any station.

The International Herald Tribune reports that about 20,600 Vélib' bicycles are in service, with more than 1,450 self-service rental stations around Paris. The stations are only about 300 yards apart, and there are four times as many as there are subway stations, even in a city so well served by its metro system.

The paper reports that In the first year there have been 27.5 million trips in this city of roughly 2.1 million people, many of them for daily commutes. On average, there are 120,000 trips a day. And on July 27, at the conclusion here of the Tour de France, 365 lucky Vélib' riders will be chosen to ride along for a while and cross the finish line.

The Vélib' — a contraction of vélo for bike and liberté —program in Paris was conceived by the Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, and the 10-year contract was won by JCDecaux, a major French public relations and advertising company with good political contacts, after defeating a rival bid from Clear Channel.

JCDecaux has invested nearly $142 million to set up the rental bike system and the billboards, and must provide maintenance and replace stolen bikes; the city of Paris gets the proceeds from the usage of the bikes plus some royalties from Decaux.

According to the IHT, Decaux expects to make about $94 million a year from them. The company stands to begin turning a considerable profit if not next year, then in the third year of its 10-year contract. The city has received $31.5 million from subscribers and users of the bikes, plus an additional $5.5 million a year, fixed in the contract, from advertising royalties.

Expect to see a similar plan in the U.S. soon.