I just spent an awesome week in Paris. I went there for vacation and spent most of my time exploring the city and enjoying what it has to offer.
While I was there I noticed many bike riders out in the cold (and sometimes rain) of Paris in January. There were many, many bikes; frankly I was impressed. Many of the larger streets in Paris have dedicated lanes that are shared between bikes and busses; the lane is separated from the main part of the road by a curb. It’s ironic that a lane to keep bikes safe is shared with the largest vehicles on the road but it seemed to work. Parking spaces in Paris are few and far between, riding a bike may just be a way to combat that problem.
But the smaller streets looked fairly treacherous for a bike next to cars.
There was hardly enough room for cars by themselves but add bikes and it was enough to make me think twice about riding there. I’m sure you would get used to it and the cars all appeared to pay enough attention to not kill the bikes. Heck, even some of the sidewalks were risky when cars passed. But the bikes, motorcycles, and cars seemed to peacefully coexist on the roads of Paris. Next time I definitely hop on a bike to explore more.
Paris has a bike sharing program similar to Denver’s very own BCycle.
Obviously Paris is a much larger city than Denver so I dug up some number for comparison:
| Paris | Denver | |
| Bike Name | Velib | BCycle |
| Started | 2007 | 2010 |
| Bikes | 20,000 | 700 |
| Stations | 1,800 | 84 |
| Available | all year | all year |
| City Population | 2,273,000 | 649,000 |
| Website | http://en.velib.paris.fr/ | https://denver.bcycle.com/ |
In Paris you are never more than 300 meters from a bike station. Look at the maps of cycle stations:
Paris: Denver:
denverbikecommuter 