Vive la France! The "Vélibs" riders

The newly elected President of France, Nichola Sarkozy, nicknamed "Sarko, l'Americain," ("Sarko, the American") is in love with all things American, so it's now safe again to say, "Vive la France!"

And "Vive la France!" indeed! For this is a wonderful idea!

Check it out!

Journeys | Paris
"Finding Liberté on Two Wheels"
By ERIC RAYMAN
Published: October 14, 2007 in The New York Times
Paris’s self-service bicycle docking stations make it easy even for fresh-off-the-plane Americans to explore the city in a way that you can’t by foot, by Métro or by taxi.

Magnifique!

These "Vélibs", as the bikes are called, and "Vélibiens", as their riders are called, are a great idea! (...kind of like those push-carts one rents at airports to haul one's luggage to the car rental. Same concept, basically.)

This French idea might even play in Peoria: ooh-lah-lah!

But will it ever play in car-city L.A.?!?

How about tapping one or two of those Silicon Valley zillionaires who don't know what to do with all that money to finance it?

Here's an idea for you.

If they set up shuttle services between the major and most touristic cities (Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Venice), and they set up these "self-service bicycle docking stations" in each city, tourists and locals could ride the shuttles and once they got there and off the shuttle buses, they could simply grab one of these bikes and off they'd go!

The actual impact on traffic might be insignificant. But the improvement on quality of life, especially for tourists, might be enormous...

Yes, I know what you're going to say: "This ain't Europe. They will rip off the bikes or their parts out there." All I gotta say to that is an old cliche: "where there's a will, there's a way..."

It's worth trying...