Paris won't be a green city any time soon.
18 months ago, the advertising company JCDecaux launched a public bicycle system in the French capital. Similar schemes had been running in Vienna, Lyon, Brussels, Cordoba or Melbourne. But the company has announced that it was forced to stop operating the bicycle rental service after nearly half of the 20,000 bicycle were stolen and 11,6000 were vandalised.
The introduction of public bicycle aimed at reducing the use of car on short distances in order to make the city greener. Users were encourage to use the bikes for less than 1 hour (the price jumped from 1 to 4 euro/hour after the first hour) and could return it to any station in the capital once they were done. The scheme had been greeted with enthusiasm, with 42 million rentals since July 2007, i.e. over 30,000 rentals per day in average.
10 other French cities are now using the shared bicycle system. So far Paris is the first city that has to give up the system. In comparison, the more bicycle-friendly Austrian capital has entered its 7th year of service, with no significant problem.
More details here :
BBC News : Thefts puncture Paris bike scheme
18 months ago, the advertising company JCDecaux launched a public bicycle system in the French capital. Similar schemes had been running in Vienna, Lyon, Brussels, Cordoba or Melbourne. But the company has announced that it was forced to stop operating the bicycle rental service after nearly half of the 20,000 bicycle were stolen and 11,6000 were vandalised.
The introduction of public bicycle aimed at reducing the use of car on short distances in order to make the city greener. Users were encourage to use the bikes for less than 1 hour (the price jumped from 1 to 4 euro/hour after the first hour) and could return it to any station in the capital once they were done. The scheme had been greeted with enthusiasm, with 42 million rentals since July 2007, i.e. over 30,000 rentals per day in average.
10 other French cities are now using the shared bicycle system. So far Paris is the first city that has to give up the system. In comparison, the more bicycle-friendly Austrian capital has entered its 7th year of service, with no significant problem.
More details here :
BBC News : Thefts puncture Paris bike scheme