An article in Streetsblog says the claims of vandalism are exaggerated. According to Streetsblog, the operator of the system is negotiating with the city for improved contract terms, so they overstating the difficulties of maintaining the system. See: http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demise-greatly-exaggerated/.
I don't know who is right here (though if anyone wants to send me on a fact-find trip to Paris, I can probably be persuaded to go...), but the posting in the Times blog (which comes from a BBC story) should not be accepted uncritically. S Rose wrote: > From the Wheels blog of the Times (warning: part of the Automobiles > section) comes bleak news about the Parisian "Velib" bike-sharing > program: vandalism is dragging the program to its knees. Half have > disappeared, many of the rest have been trashed, and a "Velib extreme" > subculture has emerged in which videos of bike-trashing are posted on > YouTube. Full story is at http://bit.ly/v3l1b > http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/vandalism-vexes-paris-bike-rental-system/ > > -Scott Rose > member, bicycling and flaming communities > _______________________________________________ > Bikies mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org > > _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
