City of Light Bikes

Paris undertakes an ambitious plan to provide public bicycles and become a city where bikes are a mainstream means of transportation. The best thing is, this isn't some naive utopian scheme that is unlikely to succeed -- the company that's been contracted to carry out the plan has had great success in Lyon, where bike use has tripled (including gains among those who aren't using the public bikes). A nice bonus is that they know exactly how much they're being ridden -- 2.5 million miles in 10 months.

I consider it a very good sign that there is a business enterprise organized around providing bike systems for cities, because it indicates that bicycle transportation is becoming more prominent, and having organizations whose economic interests are served by the expansion of cycling is a good way to ensure that it happens. I can imagine some distant future where the entrenched interests of the bicycle-industrial complex start working against the public good, but I'd say that's not really a threat right now...