Thousands of bicycles zip across the French capital.
Paris:
'I love Paris', say the T-shirts in the French capital. May be they should also have T-shirts saying 'Paris loves bicycles'. There are at least 20,600 of them zipping across the city on a pay-as-you-go-basis and then thousands more owned by individuals.
The French call bicycles velos and a French company, Velib, runs 20,600 of them across Paris. There are restrictions on some streets. But not on most.
Says Louis, a student in Paris, "It is a way to avoid pollution. In a big city like Paris, it is faster than a car because it is easier to ride. You don't need a licence. It is also cheap."
How cheap? 20 euros a month or a euro per hour. And if you thought only students use them, think again. Executives in hats and suits like George Tsaklidis own their own cycles and use them to go to work, play, everything.
"I find using a bicycle is the best option for getting around. And if there are traffic jams, it is because cars take up a lot space, cycles don't. They are the width of a human being," he says.
And tell Paris that Kolkata is banning bicycles on its streets and Paris has only a one-word exclamation: crazy! In Kolkata, the Mamata Banerjee government banned bicycles on 174 streets in the city, leading to large scale protests but little else.
Certainly, many factors in Kolkata are different from Paris. But tell Parisians about Kolkata banning bicycles and Parisians are shocked.
"That's crazy," says Paris resident Daniel Katz. "Why should you ban bicycles? What will you have instead - motorbikes, cars? That's polluting the environment."
We all know Mamata Banerjee wants to turn Kolkata into London. Wouldn't hurt to be a little like Paris as well and put the banned bicycles back on the streets.
The French call bicycles velos and a French company, Velib, runs 20,600 of them across Paris. There are restrictions on some streets. But not on most.
Says Louis, a student in Paris, "It is a way to avoid pollution. In a big city like Paris, it is faster than a car because it is easier to ride. You don't need a licence. It is also cheap."
How cheap? 20 euros a month or a euro per hour. And if you thought only students use them, think again. Executives in hats and suits like George Tsaklidis own their own cycles and use them to go to work, play, everything.
"I find using a bicycle is the best option for getting around. And if there are traffic jams, it is because cars take up a lot space, cycles don't. They are the width of a human being," he says.
And tell Paris that Kolkata is banning bicycles on its streets and Paris has only a one-word exclamation: crazy! In Kolkata, the Mamata Banerjee government banned bicycles on 174 streets in the city, leading to large scale protests but little else.
Certainly, many factors in Kolkata are different from Paris. But tell Parisians about Kolkata banning bicycles and Parisians are shocked.
"That's crazy," says Paris resident Daniel Katz. "Why should you ban bicycles? What will you have instead - motorbikes, cars? That's polluting the environment."
We all know Mamata Banerjee wants to turn Kolkata into London. Wouldn't hurt to be a little like Paris as well and put the banned bicycles back on the streets.
