Bite Me Motard Partie Deux!

Paris is the City of Lights; Chicago is the City of Big Shoulders. Paris has foie gras and escargot; Chicago has hot dogs and pizza. Parisians are sophisticated and chic; we are gauche. Women swoon when hearing a French accent; yet when women hear “Da Bears,” no lady sweats. So Mary Schimch’s column in the Chicago Tribune on Friday was a bit curious when it started with, “It's not every day that you can stroll down a Chicago sidewalk and think you've been magically zapped to Paris.” Well, that ain’t gonna ever happen! Willis Tower… Eiffel Tower—not the same. In her narrative, Schich was referring to rental-bike docks that resemble the Vélib’ stations in Paris. The Parisian public bike rental program was an initiative pushed by Mayor Betran Delanoe in July, 2007. While they might share an aesthetic look, the comparison of the two systems stops there. Chicago’s “Bike and Roll” rental program offers seven rental locations and 75 bikes. The program in Paris started with 10,000 bicycles and 750 automated rental stations each with 15 or more bikes/spaces. This number has since grown to 20,000 bicycles and 1,639 stations, roughly one station every 300 meters (984.25 feet for you Americans; remember France uses metric system!) throughout the city which makes the Vélib’ the largest system of its kind in the world. The name Vélib’ is a combination of “velo” (bike) and “liberté” (freedom). The company requires that bikes can only rented by people who are older than 16 years of age. Since there are no employees at the rental sites, how will verification occur? According to the company’s web site, current rental locations are at Navy Pier, Millennium Park, and North Avenue Beach. The other locations: Riverwalk, DuSable Museum, Adler Planetarium and Foster Beach are listed as being available this summer. Since it is August, maybe the other locations are active. I don’t know and I am not biking to them to check! I would have to move out of Chicago if the city’s system grew to 20,000 bikes because I have made clear my disdain for bicycling in an urban city. (July 7, 2010: “Bite Me Biker!) The bike rental plan is quite simple: one rents a bike at one location with a credit card and returns it either to the same location or another one. The meter at the station determines what one owes from the time that has elapsed between rental and return. All the boring information on pricing can be found at the Bike and Roll web site, http://www.bikeandroll.com. My Francophile friend Caroline, who knows of the Paris operation, pointed out a number of problems with the Chicago system. Here are a few scenarios. You rent a bike at Navy Pier and ride to North Avenue Beach for a swim. You get there and all of the slots in the bike docking station are already full from people who biked from Millennium Park and parked first. What do you do? Since the bike rental charges are dependent upon time of return, the clock is ticking and you hear, “cha ching, cha ching,” going off in your head. You want to swim but you can’t because you are standing there holding a bike with no place to put it! How about you bike from Millennium Park to Navy Pier, return the bike, enjoy an afternoon at the Pier and want to return to Millennium for a concert? There are no bikes left at Navy Pier. You have to take a gas guzzling bus which disgusts you, a tree-hugging biker! Problems! My final problem with the program is that when Schmich asked Bike and Roll founder, Josh Squire, if the rental program cost the city anything, his answer was,” It doesn't cost the city anything. Since we put a couple of stations on park district space, if we get sponsorships, then the city will benefit.” Wait! A for-profit company is receiving free space from the Park District to run their company? Every other company pays rent! Where was the RFP? In Hamlet, the character Marcellus says, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” I prefer saying, “Quelque chose est pourri dans le royaume du Danemark,” because this bike deal stinks!