The city of Paris was going to add another 4500 bicycles in 30 suburbs around the city -- not through the complete towns, but at least along the main roads heading into Paris. The 30 drooling suburbs were delighted by this, as the city of Paris plans to finance the entire operation in exchange for all bike revenue from the suburban stations. Inside Paris itself, the bikes are financed by the JC Decaux advertising company and all bike revenue is still paid to the city of Paris.

However, Clear Channel (a sore loser for the Paris contract, although it won the contracts in Barcelona and a few French cities) filed a legal complaint about Paris violating the original contract with the suburban extensions, and the first court decision was in Clear Channel's favor. The city of Paris has filed an appeal, but even if it wins, the suburban bikes will not appear until the end of 2008 instead of this spring.

Thanks Kerouac for the update - guess we will be walking then.

Kerouac,
I saw the bikes in Paris; we didn't use them, as we were with the kids, but I was wondering what you do if all the bicycle parking areas are full when you want to return the bike.

Tulips question was mentioned in an article I just read about this project in some newspaper or magazine (I forget where). It said there were problems with this initiative in Paris exactly because of that (no place to leave them at the station where you want), as well as there not being one when you need it. So it wasn't as convenient for a lot of people as they had hoped. Anyway, that's what the article said. I think it said that if there wasn't a spot, you had to then go find another location to return it.

At the end of the day, many of the parking stations near our hotel were full. It would be a nuisance having to try and find a spot in the evening. I don't know how often this happens though.

When the local station is full, the screen indicates where the nearest stations with open positions are, and you can validate an extra 15 minutes of free use by pushing the button. I have not found full stations to be much of a problem, as often you just wait in line with two or three other people for a couple of minutes until new people take bikes out.

Going to a nearby station is generally only necessary in the middle of the night when there are fewer bikes moving around (I have gone to another station to return a bike a grand total of 3 times since last July, and I use about 5 bikes a day. Of course, as a regular user, I also know which stations to avoid at some times of day.).

Clear Channel spokesman Gordon Gecko was quoted as saying "Greed (for the lack of a better word) is good."