Paris, a city known for traffic congestion, is celebrating the one-year anniversary of Vélib' bike share program. Subsidized by advertising, the bikes are cheap to rent and highly accessible with more than 1,450 self-service rental stations located every 300 yards throughout the city.

In the first year, there have been 27.5 million trips in the city of roughly 2.1 million people, many of them for daily commutes. On average, there are 120,000 trips a day.

Copenhagen, Vancouver, Barcelona, Milan, Stockholm, Washington D.C., and Amsterdam have all implemented bike share programs. New York City has recently announced its intention to investigate the feasibility of instituting such a program to reduces vehicle emissions and ease congestion.