From the Dept. of Who Knew?Vélib' -a cross between "velo" (bike) and "liberté" (freedom) - has transformed travel in the French capital since it was launched in July 2007. Its sturdy grey bikes have been used 42 million times since then.
But success has come at a high price: some 7,800 of the original 15,000 bikes (20,000 in summer) have "disappeared" – presumed stolen – and 11,600 have been vandalised. It is not uncommon to find them hanging from trees in Paris, while several were spotted in Romania last year.
JCDecaux, which looks after fleet and the 1,250 ranks around Paris, said that it can no longer afford the repair and maintenance bill, and has pleaded with the mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, to provide financial support.
In exchange for running the scheme, the town hall gave the company a ten-year licence to run 1,600 of the capital's billboards. But Rémi Pheulpin, JCDecaux's director general, said that he was losing out on the deal as "the extent of the vandalism could not have been foreseen".
*Ahem.*
"It is so high that a private business cannot handle it alone, especially as it's a problem of public order. If we want the Vélib' set-up to keep going, we'll have to change the business model," he told Le Parisien.
Every day, his staff repair or replace 1,500 bikes, and he warned that the problem would only get worse when the scheme was opened up to the suburbs, including those where the 2005 riots kicked off. The suburban extension, which began a week ago, will be complete by June.
JCDecaux is considering removing bike ranks in trouble spots, which include the Forum des Halles and Pigalle, near Montmartre.
Staff recover up to 20 abandoned bikes a day.
The town hall, which makes 20 million euros (£17.5 million) per year from the Vélib', has refused to bail out JCDecaux. But it is considering launching an "anti-vandalism" public awareness operation following a recent bike safety poster campaign.