They have helped to calm the traffic-choked streets of Paris and spawned hundreds of romances among strangers. Now the French capital’s free bicycle hire scheme is coming to Central London, where 6,000 sturdy bikes will be deployed outside Tube stations and other locations.

Unlike Paris, where the cost of the bikes and docking stations is funded privately in return for advertising space, London council tax payers will have to contribute much of the £75 million cost of the scheme. That apart, Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, is copying almost every other aspect of “Velib”, the Parisian scheme, which takes its name from a contraction of vélo (bike) and liberté.

The bicycles will be free for the first half-hour to people who preregister and agree to pay an automatic penalty of about £100, deducted from their credit cards, if they fail to return the bikes. They will pay a fee of about £1 for each additional half-hour, with the rate rising sharply after about three hours to deter people from hogging the bikes. The docking stations, where users will swipe a card and then key in a number to release the bicycle, will be located every 300 metres in the West End and the City.

David Brown, of Transport for London, said that parking spaces for cars were likely to be sacrificed to make way for the bike stations. Thieves will be deterred by heavy-duty locks and the unique, sturdy design of the bikes.

Jenny Jones, a Green Party member of the London Assembly who is helping to devise the scheme, said: “They are a little bit grannyish, with a basket and mudguards, and a strong frame, so they are not very attractive to steal. We want to encourage the view of bicycles as a tool rather than a fashion accessory. We intend the parking stands to be in well-lit, very public places so the risk of the bikes being abused is minimised.”

Mr Brown said that London would start with 6,000 bikes in the summer of 2010, but this would quickly double if there was strong demand. Paris started with 10,000 bikes in July and now has 20,000. He said that concerns about street clutter meant that London would not be copying the Parisian idea of giving an advertising company free hoardings in return for funding the scheme.

JC Decaux, the company involved in Paris, has been accused of failing to repair damaged bikes and not redistributing the bikes around the city at the end of each day. The central stations are usually clogged with bikes, while those in outlying areas and at the top of hills, such as Montmartre, are often empty.

Paris has become acquainted with “velib-rage”, where people fight over the only available docking space to beat the free-use deadline.

Transport for London is considering recouping some of the cost of the scheme by having advertising on the bikes themselves, including on discs within the wheels.

The bike hire scheme was the only concrete announcement yesterday in what Mr Livingstone described as a £500 million transformation of cycling in London over the next decade.

He is proposing to create a dozen cycle commuter routes from the suburbs as part of a plan to increase the number of daily cycle trips in London from 480,000 to 1.7 million by 2025. He also plans cycle-friendly zones in town centres in outer London boroughs, with cars being instructed to give way to bikes.

But the routes and zones would be largely on roads controlled by the boroughs, which accused Mr Livingstone yesterday of failing to consult them. Daniel Moylan, chairman of the transport committee of London Councils, which represents the 33 boroughs, said: “Just because Mr Livingstone presides over a personal fiefdom doesn’t mean that he should act like a despot.

“Why should the boroughs listen to him when he has long since stopped talking or listening to them? If he truly wants his strategy to succeed, he should suspend the proposals, take the time and decency to consult with the boroughs.”

Koy Thomson, chief executive of the London Cycling Campaign, said: “Cycling is emerging both as a major public transport mode and a mark of a modern cosmopolitan city at ease with itself and its global responsibilities.”

Ken Livingstone will not be using his own free cycle hire scheme for fear of having a repeat of the bike accident in his youth that left him with scars on the back of his hand (Ben Webster writes).

The Mayor of London told The Times: “I came home one day covered in blood from head to foot having run my bike into the back of a car. I also hit a pothole and came off while on two wheels in Corfu.”

He said he was attracted by the weight-losing benefits of cycle commuting, but needed his Tube journeys to catch up on reading.

“It’s a tough choice – I either have an hour a day in which to read the papers or I lose a stone and a half by cycling to and from work. Unfortunately, I need that hour.”

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