I recently read a couple of interesting facts on bike sharing around the world. Since this transportation mean is the epitome of sustainable development I thought I might share them with you.
Montreal launched last week Bixi, the largest program of its kind in North America with 3,000 bikes for 300 stations. In the United States, Washington DC (pictured) launched its own last year.
But projects are gaining momentum and litterally sprout around the world. This is good news as it helps people to get rid of their cars in towns.
In France at least 20 cities have followed the exemple of Lyon, which first begun a bike sharing program in 2005 with its Vélo’v. Among these cities is Paris with the Vélib’ (see the article I wrote about it), Montpellier, Nantes, Nancy, Besançon, Dijon, Toulouse…
Since the 1990s, similar projects sprouted all over Europe with projects in large cities of Denmark, Germany, Spain, Austria, Italy, Norway, Switzerland… This kind of service begun in the capital city of Denmark, Copenhagen as early as 1995.
Bike sharing also begins to appear in the Latin America with Mexico Ciudad and more recently Rio de Janeiro. Another project in Buenos Aires is on the tracks.
This is great news ! Please be sure that I will keep you posted when similar projects were to occur.
