Although Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) hopes to create a bike rental program in Kaohsiung as soon as possible, a municipal research and assessment agency said the plan would be difficult to implement.
Environmental Protection Bureau Acting Director Chen Kai-ling (陳凱凌) told a municipal meeting on Tuesday that the bureau hopes to set up the program with NT$90 million (US$2.96 million) in funding and 4,500 new bikes by the end of the year.
However, the bureau has not held a public bid to seek investors for the rental program. A planned bid was canceled last month. The bureau then changed the project plans to include 50 rental locations rather than 20 and 4,500 bikes instead of 3,000.
But Hsu Li-ming (�?�), head of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, voiced concern that the plan would not attract investors.
The bureau is seeking investors to provide bikes, administrative staff and the rental locations, but it will be difficult for them to profit from the project, Hsu said.
The bureau must offer more incentives to attract investors, he said, suggesting that it offer publicly owned plots of land near the port and tourist spots that could be used for bike rental locations to lower operating costs.
Kaohsiung City Councilor Wu I-cheng (吳益政) said the city government should consider buying the bikes and renting them to operators at a low price because it would be difficult for investors to resell used bikes as they replace them and still make a profit.
The city should also keep track of the bikes with global positioning system technology, he said.
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