Lindsay Patterson

The mayor of London this month announced his plan to put 6,000 bicycles for hire on the streets - and create a “cycling and walking transformation in London.”

The plan follows on the heels of Paris’ success with “Velib” (a play on “velo” - bicycle, and “liberte” - freedom), which introduced over 10,000 bikes to the streets of Paris last summer. Both programs include automated docking stations every 300 feet or so (Paris has 750), so it’s likely that renting a bicycle will be easier than getting to the subway or bus stop. Plus, the programs are super cheap - a day’s worth of cycling in Paris costs 1 euro, and a full year is only 28 euros. And apparently, the bikes are nearly impossible to steal.

The benefits - where to start? London says its program will save 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. Bike-loving cities become friendlier to pedestrians, cyclists, and tourists. Building exercise into your daily commute is a healthy way to double-task, and it’s no coincidence that in Copenhagen, Europe’s slimmest city, 32 percent of people commute on their bikes. And, what’s more fun - sitting in your car, silently seething at the lane-hogging 18 wheeler in front of you, or flying down hills with the wind in your hair, enjoying a palatable sense of freedom?

The list of other cities that have embraced cycling include Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Tel Aviv. This summer, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to institute a congestion pricing plan, a key part to London’s CO2 reduction plan - and failed. Then David Haskell, founder of the New York Bike-Share project, proposed in a New York Times op-ed that the cheapest way to increase public transportation would be to install 10,000 bicycles. Haskell writes:

One industry expert suggests that the cost to manufacture, install and maintain a program for 10 years comes to about $8,000 a bike. The program described above would cost New York about $8 million a year (which could be reduced depending on whether the city would be willing to allow advertising on the bicycles). In perspective: that’s a minuscule fraction of the estimated $2.1 billion cost of the 7 line subway extension now under way.

It makes a lot of sense - financially and environmentally. But I’m still left wondering if such a plan can translate across the ocean. Americans are far more attached to their cars than Europeans, and the commute is seen as a way of life. I’d like to see how the bicycling programs work after the bikes lose their novelty and shine.