Helsinki Suspending Free City Bike Programme





There will be no free-to-use city-owned bicycles in Helsinki this coming summer. Officials say that bids for the service this year turned out to be too expensive.

Plans were for the free city bike programme to be funded by advertising revenue. Projected costs of over a million euros could not be met. In contrast, for example in Stockholm, service providers fund the availability of bikes.

The director of Helsinki's mass transit planning department, Ville Lehmuskoski, admits that a re-evaluation of policy is needed.

"The recession has had an impact, but the terms and conditions related to advertising were slightly stricter than in Stockholm. When we start a new bidding process we will see if we can offer conditions that are more appealing to service providers," says Lehmuskoski.

The bicycles that have been in use are in too poor condition to put back on the streets this summer. No new firm plan is in place for their replacement, and so the free-to-use bikes will not be a part of the Helsinki summer scene again before 2012 at the earliest.

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