The Life-Sized City Blog

The current mayor of Paris – Bertrand Delanoë – is a living liveable city legend. While at the reins of the city for two terms, he has transformed the French capital in so many positive ways. You have to love a mayor quoted as saying, "The fact is that cars no longer have a place in the big cities of our time". 30 km/h zones, traffic calming and... the Vélib' bike sharing system are all part of his modern legacy. The number of bicycle users in Paris has increased since the launch of Vélib'. Delanoë, however, is stepping down after the next election. Today we're going to have a critical look at what the frontrunner for the mayoral post in the city, Anne Hildago, is proposing if elected. She is already in charge of urban planning since Delanoë was elected to his second term. She knows the ropes, so to speak. In her agenda, Anne Hidalgo has proposed the following: to extend the Vélib' network to the whole metropol...

Paul Martin in Brisbane sent me an online toy this morning and I've been playing around with it. It's a live map of bike share system use in a variety of cities. I decided to compare the levels of bike share use in 12 cities. Nine of them in Europe, as well as Melbourne, Montreal and Washington, DC. I checked the levels of usage at 08:00 AM in all the European cities (I'm including London and Dublin under that label). The morning rush hour is beginning, people are heading to work. I checked the current weather conditions, too. It's late-autumn in Europe and morning temperatures are getting chillier. So, here we go. At 08:00 in the morning local time on a Friday: PARIS - VÉLIB [8 AM / 10°C / cloudy] 753 bikes in use 4.3% in use / Normal 753 is highest so far today MILAN - BIKEMI [8 AM / 8°C / shallow fog] 110 bikes in use 9% in use / High 1142 is highest so far today LONDON - BORIS BIKES [8 AM / 10°C / light drizzle] 404 bikes in use 9% in use / High 404 is highest so fa...

With all the travelling I've been doing lately comes the fact that I have borrowed a number of different bikes. I often consider taking my Mobiky folding bike with me, but since I invariably meet up with readers or like-minded people, there always seem to be bikes nearby. On my recent visit to New York, Johnathan was amazingly kind enough to let me borrow his Bullitt TNT cargo bike from Larry vs Harry . Johnathan flew to Copenhagen earlier this year just to buy one and ship it home. He provided me with not only the bike but two locks, a pump, a map of the city and a tool kit. Totally brilliant. He cycles in cycling shoes so the only hitch was that I had to adjust to pedalling on clipless pedals in my regular shoes, but that was no big deal. It was amazing how many conversations I struck up with people when I rode around on the bike. I'm on the Manhattan Bridge, stopped to take some photos, and a couple of workers on the railway shouted at me to come over. They wanted to know a...