kev's blog

Paris public transport has always been stellar, with an tight network of subway (métro) stations, commuter rail (RER/SNCF), and buses that can can get you within spitting distance of anywhere in the city, quickly and economically.  But the implementation of the Velib bike-sharing program two years ago put Paris public transport a whole other level, by any measure--ecological, economic, public health, noise pollution, etc.

There are over 10,000 Velibs parked at over 1000 parking spots across the city.  For a euro or day, or 5 euros a week, or 29 euros a year, you get an unlimited number of rentals lasting 30 minutes.  Thirty minutes is enough to get you from Drupalcon to almost anywhere downtown.  Need 45 minutes to bike somewhere?  No problem, just find a Velib parking lot (they are rarely more than 200m away), park the bike you're riding, and pick up a new one.  You could daisy chain your rides all day if you wanted to...

We're proud to announce civic.mit.edu, the primary web presence for the Center for Future Civic Media, based out of MIT's Media Lab and the Comparative Media Studies program.

For its third DrupalCamp, the Paris Drupal community is performing an awesome experiment: building a website in 48 hours for a local NGO. A very open application process drew a dozen applications from NGOs across France, with a wide variety of anti-poverty, development, and other missions. This led to the selection of Project Aurore, which is focussed on social development and "réinsertion sociale" for socially excluded groups. Aurore desire a new site to catalog social agencies in Paris (emergency housing, meals, healthe care, etc) so that their targetted communities can easily find what they need, when they need it, mixed with a video blog that reports on the same.