Environmental Leader

Paris launched a new bicycle service, Velib, early this week with more than 10,600 bikes available at 750 stations all over the city, CBC reports. The program lets users swipe their credit card and take and return a bike. Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe hopes Velib will cut car traffic in the city by 40 per cent by 2020.

A year-long pass for the program costs $41.75, a one-day pass $1.42 and a weekly pass $7.15. On the day the program launched, 13,000 people had already bought annual passes.

Earlier this month, the New York Bike-Share Project made 20 bicycles available in SoHo. If successful, the project could be expanded to other areas of the city.

Last December, Toronto’s six-year-old bike sharing program ended because it ran out of money.