On July 15, 2007 Paris launched the world’s largest bike sharing system with 10,000 bikes (now 20,000), inspired by the same system in Lyon, France, which inaugurated May 2005. On August 13, 2008, Washington DC launched the first bike sharing system in the U.S., albeit modestly with 100 bikes. Just about every major city is now considering a bike sharing system, so now’s a good time to have found this concise video explaining how the bike sharing system works, with some energetic motion graphics and music that capture the progressiveness of its intended population. You gotta feel the vibe in order to get why people want this. If only the narrator could lose the lilt…

As is now well known in bike sharing circles, the system is financed by an advertising corporation in return for the city allowing them to run ads in public transit spots, which also shares in the revenue. According to wikipedia, in Paris, the ad firm JCDecaux paid start-up costs of about $115 million, employing 285 people full time to operate the system and repair the bikes. The city receives all revenue from the bike sharing program plus a fee of about $4.3 million a year. JCDecaux is allowed to advertise on half of the 1628 city-owned billboards, the other half reserved for public-interest ads.

Read previous entries on DC’s SmartBikeDC and Paris’ Velib bike sharing programs.

Would you pay $40/year to use a bike sharing system like this? The first 30 minutes are free.