Unfortunate news out of Baltimore from earlier this month
The manufacturer of the $2.36 million Baltimore Bike Share system said his company has never experienced the level of theft that caused officials to announce a temporary shutdown of the program to allow additional locking devices to be installed to the bike docks.
The bike-share program launched last fall with 200 bicycles at 20 stations and was supposed to grow to 500 bicycles at 50 stations in the spring. Instead, it has suffered so many thefts and maintenance backups that most of the bicycles are out of service. The program will close Sunday and reopen Oct. 15.
Officials have repeatedly declined to share figures of exactly how many bicycles have been stolen.
The bicycles are outfitted with GPS technology, so the stolen or abandoned bikes were usually recovered. But thefts and other non-returns of the bicycles had become such an issue that two maintenance employees were devoted solely to bike recovery, officials said.
How can a 200 bike system cost $2.36 million? That's almost $12,000 per bike.
Posted by: contrarian | September 27, 2017 at 01:48 PM
You didn't include the cost of each dock, which is way more than any bike.
Posted by: brightwood | September 28, 2017 at 11:49 PM