Sustainable Transportation Blog

"Since the program started in July, 2007, 8,000 of the bicycles have been stolen, and nearly 1,400 people were arrested for Vélib' theft just last year. Police have retrieved about 100 of the purloined bicycles from the depths of Paris canals and the Seine River. Some have been spotted on balconies. There have been reports that a few turned up, mysteriously, on the streets of other European cities. But the fate of most of the missing bicycles is unknown. At the same time, 16,000 bicycles have been vandalized...Vélib' was also not supposed to cost taxpayers anything. Now, under pressure...city council has decided to cover €400 of the cost of replacing each damaged bike – an estimated expenditure of €1.6-million a year."

What this may mean for other systems, such as the Bixi scheme launched this May in Montreal is an open question. Montreal is hoping they can avoid Paris' problems :

"Montreal... [will require] all renters to swipe a credit card. The city is also cultivating a sense of civic pride in the Bixi. The official Web site of the bike's developers features a cult-like credo-- 'We are Bixi,' it begins -- so perhaps the hope is that stealing or damaging one of the Montreal bikes will be come to be seen as blasphemous. The aluminum-framed, three-speed bicycles were created by award-winning Montreal designer Michel Dallaire with an eye to thwarting vandals and thieves and easing the job of mechanics."

All these factors may help. However, the one major difference between the systems is that Velib is operated by the private outdoor advertising company JCDecaux, while Montreal's Bixi system is fully public, and owned and operated by the city's parking authority. In other words, Bixi is part of the "commons" that is shared by all local residents, rather than private property. And things that are truly held in common may be better able to avert the fate of Garret Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons, in which the commonly-held land is destroyed by the collective expression of self-interest. So it remains to be seen if this will make a difference. However, the most important thing that the Paris experience shows is that there is a common problem associated with any effort to introduce new technologies: that the cultural and social dimension of technological uptake is essential, but the most difficult to do well.

Michael Dudley