Free Bikes Flop in Brussels

Cabaal

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/free_bikes_flop.php

blorg

I would be concerned about the planned Dublin scheme as are also being shortchanged on the bikes, like Brussels. Bike quantity and depot location will be key to the success of the system, as will it being very very cheap and preferably free for the first half hour.

http://buckplanning.blogspot.com/2007/07/dublin-shortchanged-on-free-bikes.html

I was in Barcelona before Christmas, pissing rain, really nasty weather, and these things were _phenomenally_ popular, it really looks like it is working there and it's not just the weather. I was in Berlin for the World Cup in 2006, sun beating down and the DB scheme there didn't seem half as popular.

fish-head

It's hardly fair to call it a flop just because it isn't immediately mimicking the success of other cities. That blog is a heap of it.

blorg

The blogger was only there for three days (presumably as a tourist) so it is not exactly an in-depth study, but the points raised (too few bikes, too few stations, no cooperations with suburbs, no initial free period) are perfectly valid. Makes sense to learn from cities where this thing is working well.

Compare Barcelona (same blog:)

Barcelona Has Gone Bicing Crazy: 30.000 Users in 2 Months!

As I say, I was there in the pissing rain and people were riding them all over the place. So it's not the weather. So what is different?

1500 bicycles and 100 stations, connecting other public transport stations such as metro, train, buses and major car parks ... annual subscription is €24 (or €6 before July 6th!) ... first 30 minutes are free

Plenty of well connected stations and first thirty minutes free (most journeys on these things would be under 30 mins.)

rubadub

blorg wrote: »

I would be concerned about the planned Dublin scheme as are also being shortchanged on the bikes, like Brussels.

I would be more concerned about all the wheels being kicked in overnight, at the stroke of midnight any bike locked in town gets its wheels kicked in. Has this happened in any countries with such schemes, or just an Irish thing?

blorg

Good point but I think they are relatively rugged. I get the impression that the wheel kicking thing is related to failure to steal the bike, and these ones are all:

* very distinctive, the bikes tend to be pretty unique to the scheme (e.g. obvious if you have stolen one.)
* GPS-tracked
* parked in camera-monitored racks
* not particularly great to cycle, but fine for short distances (e.g. not attractive to thieves in the first place)

Small wheels (which most seem to have) will help a bit. Barcelona is pretty bad in terms of petty crime so we may yet have hope!

rubadub

blorg wrote: »

I get the impression that the wheel kicking thing is related to failure to steal the bike, and these ones are all:

Some for sure, but some people on here have seen kicking for no reason and challenged people. Some kicked bikes are cheap yokes nobody would bother stealing. If ever I see a bike locked but fallen sideways against a pole I always upright it. It is like a sideways bike is fair game, and once it has a slight buckle they descend like vultures and destroy it. They are mindless idiots, same lad who kick in bus shelters, and tear off bus timetables, The same kunts are probably at the same bus stop the next night, freezing with no shelter and cursing themselves for ripping down the timetable!

I think most damage in town is drunken arseholes showing off their great strength:rolleyes: in being able to destroy property. I seriously worry about what I would do if I caught someone kicking in my bike.

Some thieves might kick it in to come back later with better tools to get it, they wont bother with that for a €150 mountainbike. A proper thief would damage the lock.

I am in no way worried about them being nicked, for the reasons you gave, some of which I didnt know before.

Ghost Rider

Off topic, this, but... Is it possible to get a cheap-ish GPS tracking device for your own bike? Or would it be prohibitively expensive? I can think of plenty of people who'd probably pay for it, if it were around the 100-150 quid mark and not easy to remove/find.

blorg wrote: »

Good point but I think they are relatively rugged. I get the impression that the wheel kicking thing is related to failure to steal the bike, and these ones are all:

* very distinctive, the bikes tend to be pretty unique to the scheme (e.g. obvious if you have stolen one.)
* GPS-tracked
* parked in camera-monitored racks
* not particularly great to cycle, but fine for short distances (e.g. not attractive to thieves in the first place)

Small wheels (which most seem to have) will help a bit. Barcelona is pretty bad in terms of petty crime so we may yet have hope!

blorg

BTW I think the GPS may just be in the German DB system - I believe you can lock them anywhere, not just at the defined stations, so the GPS keeps track of where they are. GPS wouldn't be so necessary in the Barcelona/Paris systems as when the bikes are checked out they are the liability of the person checking them out (who has to be registered with the scheme.)

In terms of doing it yourself, I imagine it would be expensive. You'd need a GPS with a GSM module that can transmit location back; you'd also need a battery and way of charging it. If my experience with my Garmin is anything to go with GPS is relatively power hungry; this wouldn't necessarily need constant tracking but it might be as difficult to just switch on every 30 mins given the time it takes to sync to the satellites. I would suspect in a normal bike best place to put all this would be inside the frame; if a thief wasn't expecting it, down the seatpost is accessible. Otherwise could be installed somewhere less accessible at manufacturing time. Don't know how this might affect GPS/GSM reception though.

I believe the stations may have some battery charging capacity although these things do use dynamo power for the lights.

blorg

BTW these bikes are _heavy_- Barcelona boasts of "reduced weight (they only weigh 16,5 kg)"!

I think the Paris ones are 22kg. This is due to the focus on hard wearing materials and all the extra stuff that goes into them. Still fine for short hops around the city which is the intended use (but again unattractive to thieves.)

niceonetom

rubadub wrote: »

I would be more concerned about all the wheels being kicked in overnight, at the stroke of midnight any bike locked in town gets its wheels kicked in. Has this happened in any countries with such schemes, or just an Irish thing?

i think it is pretty irish. we can't have nice things in public spaces because they will simply be destroyed. that simple. you see examples of the opposite whenever you travel in europe. i remember the bus-shelters when i was in spain a while back. they're made of light glass and aluminium(!) and are very elegant structures with digital readouts with bus times etc, and real seats(!) that would be instantly mangled in ireland. it's only when you travel that you see how we have no street furniture in ireland that isn't either unbreakable or broken.

rubadub

niceonetom wrote: »

when you travel that you see how we have no street furniture in ireland that isn't either unbreakable or broken.

It is disgusting what goes on. They are essentially destroying their own furniture/property, we are all paying for it with taxes etc, not like it is some revenge vandalising or anything. If a bike is nicked at least it is still being used.

Ghost Rider

I think we get the thugs we deserve, to some extent.

Some people don't see public property as belonging to them. It's as if the term "public" means "belonging to the Government" rather than "belonging to the people".

I'd go as far as to say the whole idea of a public sphere is alien to many Irish people. And, much as I loathe vandalism against bikes and cyclists, I'm not sure I fully blame them. Obviously, the Irish didn't own Ireland for a very long time, so there was no such thing as public property in any real sense. It's arguable (and is often argued) that we're still getting used to the idea of not being ruled from without. Examples might include the way in which we tend to admire people who get away with shafting the State; the right or centre-right consensus in politics; the widespread acceptance of "cute-hoorism" among politicians; and so on.

More pressingly, most Irish Governments (including the present one) don't seem to have fully committed to the idea of a public sphere either. I couldn't even begin to create an exhaustive list of evidence for this. Suffice to point out what's blindingly obvious to a lot of people on this forum i.e. that transport policy since the formation of the State has prioritised private transport over public, and subsidised short-term, individualistic initiatives over those which preserve the public good, such as cycling.

In short, if the Government doesn't believe in the public sphere, why should anyone else?

rubadub wrote: »

It is disgusting what goes on. They are essentially destroying their own furniture/property, we are all paying for it with taxes etc, not like it is some revenge vandalising or anything. If a bike is nicked at least it is still being used.

niceonetom

Ghost Rider wrote: »

I think we get the thugs we deserve, to some extent.

Some people don't see public property as belonging to them. It's as if the term "public" means "belonging to the Government" rather than "belonging to the people".

I'd go as far as to say the whole idea of a public sphere is alien to many Irish people. And, much as I loathe vandalism against bikes and cyclists, I'm not sure I fully blame them. Obviously, the Irish didn't own Ireland for a very long time, so there was no such thing as public property in any real sense. It's arguable (and is often argued) that we're still getting used to the idea of not being ruled from without. Examples might include the way in which we tend to admire people who get away with shafting the State; the right or centre-right consensus in politics; the widespread acceptance of "cute-hoorism" among politicians; and so on.

More pressingly, most Irish Governments (including the present one) don't seem to have fully committed to the idea of a public sphere either. I couldn't even begin to create an exhaustive list of evidence for this. Suffice to point out what's blindingly obvious to a lot of people on this forum i.e. that transport policy since the formation of the State has prioritised private transport over public, and subsidised short-term, individualistic initiatives over those which preserve the public good, such as cycling.

In short, if the Government doesn't believe in the public sphere, why should anyone else?

all excellent points.

i would add to that list a historical lack of real socialism in ireland (and no, i don't count sinn fein (who are only republicans marketing themselves to the poor), or labour (who are only trades unionists marketing themselves to the middle classes)). we do have a very weak concept of shared ownership.

there might be a slightly counterintuitive approach to this one - similar to the naked road thing in some ways. if we continue to design all public facilities to be vandal-proof, well, all we're doing is challenging the vandals to be even more violent and creative in their methods of destruction. it ceases to be the public's responsibility to behave themselves, but becomes instead the responsibility of the state to provide unbreakable facilities (an impossible task). this is naive perhaps but if we were provided with facilities that had a little more "surprise and delight" we might rise to the challenge, and resist the urge to brick it, just because it's nice.

basically what i'm saying is that making things "unbreakable" sends the message to some of us that what you're supposed to do to this thing is try to break it. if you do, you win.

Raam

I read the title and thought it said "Free flip-flop hubs in Brussels" I need some help.

Ghost Rider

Funny you should suggest that. Only last night I suggested to someone that the "naked road" logic could conceivably be applied to areas beyond road safety e.g. public property. We even wondered if it would ever be possible to protect private property under that same principle. It was at that point that I awoke to the tar-like stink of Maxwell House meandering through my gaff like a Christmas fart.

Nah, seriously though: I'd like to see experimental schemes like that being tried in this country on a small scale. That way they could be properly worked on, modified and (perhaps) perfected without being tossed aside just because they don't yield positive results instantly.

niceonetom wrote: »

there might be a slightly counterintuitive approach to this one - similar to the naked road thing in some ways. if we continue to design all public facilities to be vandal-proof, well, all we're doing is challenging the vandals to be even more violent and creative in their methods of destruction. it ceases to be the public's responsibility to behave themselves, but becomes instead the responsibility of the state to provide unbreakable facilities (an impossible task). this is naive perhaps but if we were provided with facilities that had a little more "surprise and delight" we might rise to the challenge, and resist the urge to brick it, just because it's nice.

basically what i'm saying is that making things "unbreakable" sends the message to some of us that what you're supposed to do to this thing is try to break it. if you do, you win.