Fear for your lives next summer

The Cycle Hire scheme is very well-managed, backed by solid funding, moving ahead well on schedule, and will be a success. All of the worries expressed in this thread have been considered and addressed--e.g., the cost of vandalism is factored into the scheme's running costs, etc. There is now a considerable amount of experience, from Paris and dozens of other cities, of the impact of such schemes, and nothing about it is a novelty.

I'm really looking forward to it. We expect it to usher in a change reminiscent of the early days of congestion charging, although its full impact will only be released gradually as more bikes and hire stations are added, and the scope of the hire zone increased.

Some times I <3 your naive socialist dreaming.