French Employees Get Paid to Bike to Work

Angie Schmitt of StreetsBlog USA and Michael Graham Richard of TreeHugger summarize Reuter's post on the latest bike-to-work incentive in France. Twenty French companies comprising 10,000 employees are participating in a program that pays commuters $0.34 per biked mile to work. Per Reuters, the program expects to increase bike commute from current 2.4 percent to 3.6 percent of all work commutes. While this program is not sponsored by the government, the French Transport Ministry plans to adopt the program at a larger scale if it proves successful.

Other European countries participating in similar bike-to-work initiatives include the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and Britain. Reuters lists the successful outcome of similar programs: "In Belgium, where a tax-free bike incentive scheme has been in place for more than five years, about 8 percent of all commutes are on bicycles. In the flat and bicycle-friendly Netherlands, it is about 25 percent."