NEW YORK, NY July 10, 2008 --The city's plan to begin a bike sharing program is being met with enthusiasm by biking advocates.

The Department of Transportation has put out a request for expressions of interest for companies who can help initiate a program like one in Paris which has 20,000 public bikes that can be picked up and dropped off at points around the city.

Wiley Norvell is with Transportation Alternatives.

NORVELL: New York City's a public transportation town, and we want our transportation landscape to include a bicycle share so that it's just as common for a New Yorker to hop on a public bicycle as it is to hop on the subway or hop into a taxi cab.

REPORTER: The city estimates that about 1 percent of commuting trips are currently made by bicycle.

It wants to double that figure by 2015, but the Forum for Urban Design says a bike share program would make biking grow much faster than that.