By David Z. Morris
Fortune
Tim Ericson was studying in Paris in July of 2007 when the Vélib’ public bike-sharing system was unveiled. Vélib’ lets citizens and tourists check out bikes from electronic docking stations and cruise around the City of Light.
“I don’t own a car, I still don’t own a car,” says Ericson. “So I was fascinated by this concept.”
Ericson would go on to launch CityRyde (now Zagster), one of the first U.S.-based bike share companies, even as others in the U.S. were having similarly eye-opening experiences. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley also hopped on a Vélib’, and thousands of riders enjoyed pop-up bike shares at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 2008, in Denver and Minneapolis respectively.
Those two cities became the first to deploy large-scale permanent systems. Now, the floodgates are open—dozens of U.S. bike sharing systems have launched in the past three years.
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