Paris vs Bristol
Bristol, Britain’s first Cycling City, aims to introduce a Paris Velib-style cycle hire scheme, operated by Hourbike. My fear is that, by having a system that is too small, the scheme will fail. Some quotes from the Happy Birthday Velib video (linked below) bear this out:
bq. “you have to go big enough to where it’s at least 1 bike per 200 residents. I think that’s a bare minimum for the good function of the system”
bq. “cities who made too small an organisation, too small [a] network, don’t have real success”
bq. “when you have not enough stations. not enough bicyles, the people don’t choose it”
bq. “It’s seamless, it’s easy, it’s fun. What’s better than having a public bike be a part of your public transport system?”
– Happy Birthday Velib on Youtube?v=xw_Hrx1DS3A
(Found via Karl McCracken’s blog)