Two months passed, 150 bikes stolen, no response given
Nice introduced its rent-a-bike system in July. Now, with over 150 Vélos stolen and/or broken, the company has been forced to suspend the service while it adjusts the security system.
This is unprecedented, despite other grandes villes like Paris and Marseilles already having a stable Vélo system in place.
What it really shows is the rapid increase of delinquency and anti-social behaviour in the city.
The security problems don’t lie with the Vélo company, Veloway, the affiliate of Veolia, but are really a consequence of the bad choices the Mayor Christian Estrosi has made since 2008.
Stop him, he’s getting away! (Estrosi)
For ideological reasons, Estrosi has constantly refused to increase the numbers of local policemen out on the streets to keep order in the city.
Instead, he persists to funnel investment into video surveillance and the over-equipment of existing police officers, such as his project to give them all tasers to play with.
Patrick Allemand, leader of the Opposition in the Conseil Municipal (Town Hall), said (in French):
The citizens of Nice do not need a « Robocop » but a human presence which dissuades crime and reassures citizens.
Furthermore, I have not seen one person wearing a helmet while riding these bikes. Not in the street, not in the adverts, not even Estrosi… though that might be a good thing!
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[...] We told you when Nice introduced its Velo Bleu rent-a-bike system back in July and now we have to sadly report that with over 150 Vélos stolen or vandalised, the service has had to be suspended while they work out a new security system. What a shame and let’s hope they catch some of the hooligans responsible for ruining what is a wonderful idea. You can find out more here [...]
How can you be ideologically opposed to police officers but not opposed to CCTV, that just doesn't make sense???
It's because Patrick Allemand's crew keep proposing to increase police numbers; Estrosi has closed over seven police stations this year.
Montreal had an abysmal theft and vandalism problem this summer with the Bixi system (our rent-a-bikes.) That was due less, in fact, with the lack of policemen on the streets and more with bad design – the locking mechanism parts were made of plastic, which means that all you had to do was to basically flip the bike over and it would rip out of its dock.
Luckily Bixi managed to get their butts in gear and fix the problem, but it did take the better part of two months, and service was still running during that time, which means that there were entire docking stations broken to pieces. A lot of unhappy customers this summer…