I want to pose a question:
How does Eric Britton calculate that 10% of modal shift from car drivers to bike share users?

I think is too much. Experience in Spain tells that bike share users were before public transport customers, pedestrian or private bike riders. Only a very few were car drivers.

A second question for the book keeping:
Calculate the annual budget of the scheme simply multiplying that amount of bicycles by barely 4.000 US Dollars per bike per year. And now try to calculate the savings of it.

Is so easy to make estimations and statistics when you are trying to advocate something...

It turns out that Paris gets it's bikes from a company whose city rental page is under construction but one that believes in motors especially for 'b2b' (like mailman truck to bike infrastructure)

http://www.accell-pro.com/product03.html

These racks deserve greater variety including electric augmentation of the drive train that the rack could recharge. Additional cargo, comfort suspensions, are all the result of a few hundred bucks extra per bike. If your nto having to take the bike upstairs, on board transit etc., it iwaying more doesn't matter.

AS to how much muscling a user must provide trhat is up to the owner of the bike. Unless you have a dr. say you can't pedal at all you can require justu as much peddle energy from users. But lower pressure tires that have less maintenance etc. drawbacks and travel at least as fast with no more effort could have this project having grown far more in now It's fourth Calendars Eve!

The point o fsharing is that it iallows greater capital investment for a lower user cost/contribution! Instead we see these program getting real dogs insuering there marginalityu and largely amusement value despite the "big number" claimed.

Of course I love the video. It's a project that needs no subsidy if it gets improved for other cities.

As to the helmet issue the link is appreciated and if you appreciate the truth regarding them then recognise a little more discipline in respectin gthe facts concerning power at least assisted ultralight (no more about approaching body weight of passenger at most!) vehicles for cities!

Imagine for example what bike only boulevards would cost if nto subsidised by cars compared to faster bike roads- yes this means accepting the premise that greater adoption would require more then two, GASP!, lanes devoted soley to nonpedestrian/car use! At that point additional lanes are very costly and can be avoided entirely by speeding up the 'bikes' a bit. 20 something MPH with very consistent acceleration depaves accomidations for noncars more then free breakfast bars several times a week can hope to.

Adam, some 15 months ago, seeks safe space- I say yeah, but an affordable, sustainable amount should be sought- that means openin gour minds to modern amenities like sharing the chain with a computer brain and maybe even some compressed methane out of a fiber tank if batteries are not ready yet.

So to recap- bikes need not be speed segregrated, maximum speeds can be lowered, and minimums imposed to make for less congestion and greater sharing of paths. It is the helmet or not issue generalised. The car is a cancerous helmet. More green lights allows lower peek speeds to shorten times spent commuting. Maintaing peek cruising speeds requires most commuters either ride tandem bikes or share there two wheels with a nonhuman form robot within the frame. Doing so allows for tolerance of greater turbulence, safer riding positions.

Our present day bikes use the same wheel to stop with that they use to coast on! Like cars do. Bikes can be so much safer then cars given there lower mass. Adding additional features to them is so much more possible then with cars. It is cars that are largely all the same because of there budget busting scale.

With bikes we can share, we can invest and maximise life cycle costs instead of just getting by as cheaply as possible up front.

Shared bikes should b eotherwise unaffordable to own privately. They should represent the very best modern science has to offer not throwback to fantasy and tourist fascination.

Confronted with the choice of a car, ones own bike, or an ongoing contribution to ashared system incorporating these narrow miracles most of us would escape the war lubricating addiction and believe it or not most of us need not have the imagination to know what would be the result- just to recognise what we want of the offered alternatives.

As the 'papercut' film maker liked to note, Henry mocked those who sought better carriages for there horses. Don't we continue to beg for such mockery of ourselves? The car followed the high skill and support needs of the horse drawn solution. NOwadays we have better tools that allow us to move alone, freely, without even havin gto pay much attention nor sweat to navigation.

A good bike is seen as too expensive by most who get hustled into using cars. Yes it's cheaper if you don't have to provide parking for the bike you use- but .... don't ignore the cars still being used!

Reducing the amount that must be spent on the road to accomidate a human powered bike frees up thousands of dollars to improve that bike so as to enable it to gobble up far less ashpault! Providing public museum era bikes is a disgrace premised on further decades of marginalising non car solutions.

One could even say a reason to not motorise these bikes is then NOBODY would pay as everyon ewould be done in under half an hour. Taxes gthough, would still come down. Depaving budgets would increase. Much oil would be left in the sand for the next milleniums planning.

A.

It's really remarkable what the Velib' program has accomplished in just one year. And really, Parisiens were hardly overall friendly to the idea of giving up space to the bicycle. Anything is possible if there's will and sustained policy/planning. I'd know, I'm from Amsterdam.

cheers