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This is not surprising in the slightest. Cambridge (UK) tried the same thing a few years ago - flooded the place with green painted bikes. Within a few days they'd all been re-painted and "claimed" (owned) by poor students.
When are politicians going to realize, the #1 obstacle to people riding a bike is not the availability of the bike, it's the laziness of the person and the cheapness of alternatives (namely cars). It has to be an integrated whole system or it won't work at all.
Human stupidity will always break every record. If these sub-human vandals weren't there, the bike-sharing would be a success and keep thousands of pounds of dirt out of the air.
You always mention Lyon but never Rennes (France again), which was the first city ever to introduce bike sharing in 1998, way before Lyon or Paris. And best of all, it's free (bar the one-time subscription fee) contrary to Paris. It has been working continuously without problems for the last 10 years.
Moreover I have to mention the fact that JCDecaux is a very wealthy company that has a quasi-monopoly in France on street furniture, especially bus stops, and generates massive profits from advertisement (IOW, selling piles of useless junk that end up in landfills). They are well known for their anti-competitive practices, let alone corruption of local officials. Paris' choice of JCDecaux for an ad-supported bike sharing program generated some controversy when it was introduced. JCDecaux are far from being philanthropists so I won't shade a tear on their loss of revenues. Programs such as Rennes' "Vélo à la carte" prove that Vélib's economic model is unneeded.
Anyone caught vandalizing/stealing a bike gets the death penalty. Problem solved!
As with all unintended consequences, the next question is "Now, how do we deal with it?"
Oh, gee. Who would have expected that? Another liberal feel-good program reaches its logical and inevitable conclusion.
Hence:
"The goat that is owned by the entire village will be left to die in the sun." -- Haitian saying
Fortunately, Virgil, in free western societies, the government does not control the price of cars ... yet.
Sorry Virg but cars are pretty expensive compared to bikes.
True, true. I'm surprised that the cost of replacing the bike is "only" €400. I had read that the price was kept a secret but estimated to be around (an outrageous) €1000 to €1500, but maybe it was including the infrastructure that goes with it.
It's really a shame that so many blogs and news services have reproduced this negative reporting without checking the details.
The Velib scheme is an amazing success bringing an entire new form of transport to a major modern city. The original story said that 7,800 bikes had disappeared, it also said that they find 20 of them every day, that's about 5,000 a year. These bikes are being stolen for a few hours then left lying around the streets. The police or Velib pick them up and return them to the system.
City of Paris is earning 20million euros a year, all the surrounding districts are trying to get the system extendend into their area. J C Decaux have re-negotiated their payment deal linked to improving their maintenance programme. There are several large companies competing to introduce a similar scheme in London. There may be problems along the way but these schemes should be welcomed as a revolutionary change to urban travel systems.
The city is kicking in for lost or damaged bikes so the costs to run the program are the same, but the advertising revenues for all the billboards they traded to J C Decaux are down and J C Decaux wants a bail out. It has nothing to do with the Velib program and everything to do with J C Decaux's ancillary business.
It makes no sense to change course because of a bump in the road and I never believe a word that comes from the mouths of anyone at J C Decaux.
Constructing the bikes with trade marked not easily removed obvious physical feature could nip those who steal and refinish the bikes. That should allow law enforcement inspect the serial number of any bike with a color finish other than the "official" finish. Why is it some describe something as "liberal feel good" to shift the blame from the real problem? Those who do so are not any better than those who vandalised the bikes. While it would be more of an inconvenience, the bikes should be checked into and out of the system with a bike serial number that can be tied to an individual.
Yep that's a huge pb.
I live in Paris and whenever you need to take a Velib you have to make sure it is ok. Check tires, brakes...
I think that this is more inthe French mentality not to take care am stuffs (am French actually).
Take the subway for exemple, I have seen nowhere else people shitting the subway that much
Have they thought of using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device) tags that are fitted inside the bike. I am working with 15 UK Police forces who are fitting the tags to bikes in an effort to prevent cycle theft. So far we have suppliued 50,000+ and we have found that tagged cycles are 10 times less likely to be stolen with a 100% identification if they are stolen and recovered because of the tag. The unique tag and warning label number are registered on a national database www.immobilise.com (for the USA www.immobilize.net) free of charge. In the UK there are over 1 million cycles registerd with another 25 million items of other property. The police can check the cycle details against their database and if it doesnt not come up as reported stolen then the details of the registered owner come up and they can be contacted. It is a brilliant system and the tagging is helping to reduce the thefts. If you want any more information please e mail me on j.macintyre@virgin.net and I will send you a newsletter.
"Fortunately, Virgil, in free western societies, the government does not control the price of cars ... yet."
Yes they do. They subsidize the roads. How expensive do you think cars would be if Ford had to make all of the roads for the cars to drive on as well as make all the cars themselves?
Or maybe the price would just be reflected in having to pay for the roads....
I like the idea of a bike sharing scheme but I don't think it'd work in many places because the temptation to steal is too much for some people. Should be more cyclepods in cities to help with theft: www.lottefoster.com</p>
http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demise-greatly-exaggerated/