It was there all the time: Putting shared transport to work. * Share Transport 2010 – Conference in Kaohsiung, ROC *

The all but invisible (unless you were looking for it) trend behind true sustainability in the transport sector is . . . sharing. We now know that the only way to significantly reduce the CO2 load of our transportation arrangements is through corresponding reductions in motorized traffic (VMT/VKT). Which means efficiently getting more people and goods in those vehicles still plying the road. And to do this well, we need to learn a lot more about sharing.

Kaohsiung 2010 Conference plan in brief

The objective of this International Conference - the first of its kind -- is to examine the concept of shared transport (as opposed to individual ownership) from a multi-disciplinary perspective, with a strong international and Chinese-speaking contingent. The goal of this event is to bring together leading thinkers and sharing transport practitioners from around Taiwan, Asia and the world, and to provide them with a high profile opportunity to share experience, perspectives, ideas, and recommendations on this important trend.

The concept of shared transport is at once old and new, formal and informal, and one that is growing very fast. However to now attention has focused on the technical details of each project and approach -- as opposed to stepping back first to gain a broader understanding of the basic human, societal, and economic trends and realities behind this kind of behavior more generally.

But something important is clearly going on, and the Kaohsiung event will be looking at this carefully, in the hope of providing a broader strategic base for advancing not just the individual shared modes, but the sustainable transport agenda more broadly

Background: Sharing in the 21st century - Will it shape our cities?

After many decades of a single dominant city-shaping transportation pattern - i.e., for those who could afford it: owning and driving our own cars, trucks, motorcycles and bicycles, getting into taxis by ourselves, riding in streets that are designed for cars and not much else -- there is considerable evidence accumulating that we have already entered into a world of new mobility practices that are changing the transportation landscape in many ways. It has to do with sharing, as opposed to outright ownership. But strange to say, this trend seems to have escaped the attention of the policymakers in many of the institutions directly concerned.

Largely ignored by the transport policy establishment perhaps but transport sharing is an important trend, one that is already starting to reshape at least parts of some of our cities. It is a movement at the leading edge of our most successful (and wealthiest and livable) cities -- not just a watered down or second-rate transport option for the poor.

With this in view, we are setting out to come together to examine not just the qualities (and limitations) of individual shared mobility modes, but also to put this in the broader context of why people share. And why they do not. And in the process to stretch our minds to consider what is needed to move toward a new environment in which people often share rather than necessarily only doing things on their own when it comes to moving around in our cities worldwide.

As a contribution to international understanding in this fast emerging but largely unexplored field, the city of Kaohsiung is organizing, together with an international team from the Chinese Institute of Transport (CIT), the Global New Mobility Project, Megatrans Taiwan, and National Taiwan University, a three-day international conference and brainstorming session to take place from 16 - 18 September 2010, in which a number of people working at the leading edge of these matters will come together, first to examine together the general concept of sharing in the 21st century. And then, once this broader frame and understanding has been established, go on to consider how sharing as an organizational principle is working out in each of the individual mobility modes which are rapidly gaining force in cities around the world.

Sharing in Transport (Quick introduction)

Below is our latest list of the shared transport modes to be considered by the conference. (This list to be prioritized, pruned and consolidated as useful for the conference. Only selected topics will be covered by the formal sessions.)

1. Bikesharing
2. Carsharing (includes both formal and informal arrangements
3. Fleetsharing
4. Ridesharing (carpools, van pools, hitchhiking - organized and informal).
5. Taxi sharing
6. Shared Parking
7. Truck/van sharing (combined delivery, other)
8. Streetsharing 1 (example: BRT streets shared between buses, cyclists, taxis, emergency vehicles)
9. Streetsharing 2 (streets used by others for other (non-transport) reasons as well.)
10. Public space sharing
11. Work place sharing (neighborhood telework centers; virtual offices; co-workplace; hoteling)
12. Sharing SVS (small vehicle systems: DRT, shuttles, community buses, etc.)
13. Cost sharing
14. Time sharing
15. Successful integration of public transport within a shared transport city? Including bus and rail
16. Team sharing
17. Knowledge-sharing (including this conference)

Initial conference details (to be finalized)

Event: Three day international conference and planning workshops

Dates: 16-18 September 2010.

Theme: "It was there all the time: Putting shared transport to work in our cities"

Location: City of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, ROC

Hosts: City of Kaohsiung, with support of the Chinese Institute of Transport and National Taiwan University

Speakers
• Presenting the leading edge of thinking, policy and practice in this fast emerging field.
• Panel of distinguished international speakers will be joined by Taiwanese and Chinese leaders

Participants
• Researchers, city administration, activists, NGOs, students, media, and suppliers to the sector
• From Taiwan, China, South-East Asia and all other interested

Participant questionnaire:
Each participant is invited to fill out a short questionnaire prior to registration, to help the organizers structure the conference and in particular the breakout sessions on the various share modes to serve the needs of the group better. Comments and suggestions are also welcomed, and the organizers commit to answering your communications and questions.

Call for papers: (To follow.)

Poster sessions invitations: (To follow.)

Other events in planning stages:
There are several other closely related events that are to be integrated into the program. While final details are not yet available, but here are several of the events that are presently under discussion:

1. Integrating the meeting with the 2010 Kaohsiung Car Free Day (the seventh in their series since 2003)
2. Ditto for a New Mobility Week presently under discussions.
3. A possible New Mobility Master Class (again focusing on Kaohsiung)
4. Working links to the Taipei Low Carbon Cities program
5. Kids Sharing Channel (Open school project)
6. University Media project:
7. A guided tour program for visitors taking them to key sharing and new mobility projects and cities in both Taiwan and the PRC.

Language: Chinese/English. Full translation of all sessions

Sponsors: Under discussion. Both private and public sector partners being invited to participate.

Conference venue: Garden Villa Kaohsiung - http://www.gardenvilla.com.tw/eng/index.php

Media: The program will be media rich, all the way through from using the latest Web, internet, videoconferencing and virtual presence technologies, to extensive use of film and videos to provide a higher impact and more rapid understanding of the principles. Goal is to share conference freely and broadly.

For further information: Contact details just below.

Why Kaohsiung?

The city of Kaohsiung is taking this initiative because it realizes that most of our cities need new thinking and new approaches to resolving the insufficiencies of our present transportation arrangements, theirs included. The city is putting new ideas and real resources into their transport challenges. They have has already introduced one of the first shared bike projects in Asia, are looking into taxi-sharing, have been celebrating Car Free Days since 2003, and are building cycling infrastructure at a steady pace. Carsharing is a new idea for Kaohsiung and visitors will be able to see how they are approaching it as one more shared transport option.

The city has a spanking new metro, but the transport means of choice for about two thirds of all trips is the South Asian special, motorized two wheelers. There is something about "seeing the future" as you observe this striking pattern on the street, and it pushes the mind to consider how to come to grips wiht this new and largely unmapped phenomenon.

So when you come to Kaohsiung for the conference in September, you will also be able to take advantage of a two day new mobility tour of the city's transportation arrangements, challenges and plans for the future. Planners and policy makers from cities around the world are going to recognize a lot of what they see in Kaohsiung.

The conference materials pack will contain extensive background on and leads to further information on each of these topic areas. To be made available before the meeting convenes.

The conference address is www.kaohsiung.sharetransport.org.

For more, contact:

For Chinese media, participation, sponsor and administrative contacts:
Susan Lin, Project Leader
Mega Trans International Corporation
Hansheng East Road
Banciao City Taipei County 22066 Taiwan
Susanlin0823@gmail.com Tel. +886 922 661 235

For meeting logistics, overall organization and UK contacts:
Rory McMullan, Project Manager
PTRC Education and Research Services Ltd.
1 Vernon Mews, Vernon Street,
W14 0RL United Kingdom
rory.mcmullan@ptrc-training.co.uk Tel. +44 (0) 20 7348 1970 Skype: roryer

For matters relating to content, ACOST, speakers, jury and moderating
Eric Britton, Program Chair:
New Mobility Partnerships
The Commons/EcoPlan international
Le Frêne, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara. 75006 Paris, France
eric.britton@newmobility.org Tel. +331 4326 1323 Skype: newmobility

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Guest editorial: What to do when public transportation fails

Recently the city of Philadelphia, experienced a six day long strike by the local transit authority, SEPTA. Subways and buses stopped operating only hours before the Monday morning rush hour leaving workers scrambling for alternative modes of transportation to get to the office.

- Submitted by Timothy Ericson, CityRyde, Philidelphia, PA USA

The strike also left many school aged children stranded and unable to attend classes. Even non-transit riders were frustrated with huge increases in vehicular traffic on all of the city’s roads and hiways. During the strike period, bicycle ridership skyrocketed in Philadelphia as it was the only option for many commuters to reach their destinations. The strike forced many residents to view the bicycle as a primary form of transportation.

Paris, France had a similar scenario back in October of 2007 when their transit workers went on strike. However Paris commuters had an option that Philadelphia commuters did not, they have a bike sharing system. Vélib’, one of the largest bike sharing systems in the world, experienced a tremendous increased in ridership during this strike. According to a New York Times article, Vélib’ trips almost doubled to 175,000 trips a day, and this was still before the system was completely installed throughout the city. City officials even installed temporary stations throughout the city to try and curb the demand. Although many Parisians complained that bicycles were not available, they were lucky to have a bike sharing system available to them when the city was paralyzed.

During Philadelphia’s transit strike CityRyde had the opportunity to demonstrate to city commuters a fully functional bike sharing system during the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia’s “Bike the Strike” event. (CityRyde would like to send a special thank you to all of the staff members of the Coalition who put together the event and allowed CityRyde to demonstrate along side them.) CityRyde’s CEO and co-founder was quoted in a Philadelphia Inquirer article saying, “Bike sharing has transformed cities around the world, and we’re hoping to do the same thing in Philadelphia.” Besides showing people “there are other options out there,” today’s demo of the idea was timed “to help push it along in the City Hall,” Ericson said.

This is a wake up call to cities all over the world to look into alternative forms of transportation. Bike sharing gives residents and visitors freedom to move throughout cities on an environmental friendly, cost effective bike sharing bicycle.

CityRyde demonstrated the Samba system which is currently deployed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

IMG00130-20091104-1638
Thanks,

Timothy Ericson
CEO and Co-Founder
CityRyde, Bike Sharing Experts
3225 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
USA: +1.215.475.5224 x200
Fax: +1.215.475.5011
E: tjericson@cityryde.com
www.cityryde.com
www.sparkmobility.com

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Sixteen practical things you can start to do today to combat climate change, get around in style & meet some nice people

After many decades of a single dominant city-shaping transportation pattern (i.e., old mobility) -- there is considerable evidence accumulating that we have already entered into a world of new mobility practices that are changing the transportation landscape in many ways. It has to do with sharing, as opposed to outright ownership. An important pattern that is thus far escaping notice at the top.

"On the whole, you find wealth more in use than in ownership."
- Aristotle. ca. 350 BC

Sharing in the 21st century. Will it shape our cities?

After many decades of a single dominant city-shaping transportation pattern - i.e., for those who could afford it: owning and driving our own cars, trucks, motorcycles and bicycles, getting into taxis by ourselves, riding in streets that are designed for cars and not much else (i.e., old mobility) -- there is considerable evidence accumulating that we have already entered into a world of new mobility practices that are changing the transportation landscape in many ways. It has to do with sharing, as opposed to outright ownership. But strange to say, this trend seems to have escaped the attention of the policymakers in many of the places and institutions directly concerned.

However transport sharing is an important trend, one that is already starting to reshape at least parts of some of our cities. It is a movement at the leading edge of our most successful (and often wealthiest and most livable) cities -- not just a watered down or second-rate transport option for the poor. With this in view, we are setting out to examine not just the qualities (and limitations) of individual shared mobility modes, but also to put this in the broader context of why people share. And why they do not. And in the process to stretch our minds to consider what is needed to move toward a new environment in which people often share rather than necessarily only doing things on their own when it comes to moving around in our cities worldwide.

Sixteen sharing options you may wish to give some thought to:

1. Bikesharing

2. Carsharing (formal and informal)

3. Fleetsharing

4. Ridesharing (carpools, van pools, hitchhiking, slugging - organized and informal).

5. School share (Walking school bus, walk/bike to school)

6. Taxi sharing

7. Shared Parking

8. Truck/van sharing (combined delivery, other)

9. Streetsharing (example: BRT streets shared between buses, cyclists, taxis, emergency vehicles)

10. Activity sharing (streets used by others for other (non-transport) reasons as well.)

11. Public space sharing

12. Workplace sharing (neighborhood telework centers; virtual offices; co-workplace; hoteling)

13. Sharing SVS (small vehicle systems: DRT, shuttles, community buses, etc.)

14. Time sharing

15. Successful integration of public transport within a shared transport city (Including bus and rail)

16. Knowledge-sharing (including via World Streets)

For more:

1. Lyon Conference: If you want to learn more about this, consider going to Lyon France for their conference on transport sharing later this month (30 November, in French) - http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2009/11/transportation-sharing-and-sustainable.html
And while you are there, you can do worse to spend some time to see how they are progressing on the sharing front themselves: bikesharing and carsharing are both in place and doing well. And if you keep your eyes open you will see more.

2. Kaohsiung Conference: Or next September think about coming to Kaohsiung Taiwan for their first International Conference on Sharing Transport - see www.kaohsiung.newmobility.org . Again, a city that is already into bike sharing and looking hard at taxi sharing, among others.

3. You: And tell the world about your events, papers, media, accomplishments, problems and your ideas.

4. Us: And stay tuned to World Streets. We do sharing.

5. And now a few words from our sponsor. (30 seconds)

Pedal Power Doc on Sharing: Quick interview with Eric Britton
from Cogent Benger on Vimeo.

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Kaohsiung Car Free Days and a Green Transport Program: Low-carbon, high-amenity transport, one city at a time

With mounting visible evidence of the reality and extremely high cost of climate change, people in Taiwan increasingly feel the importance of being a part of the earth. And the city of Kaohsiung has decided to do something about it.


- Dispatch by Ray Hung, Transportation Bureau, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

Kaohsiung is Taiwan's second largest city with a population of 1,510,000. And it is a busy city. The large harbor makes it an important trade stop along the Northeast Asia/South Pacific passageway. With visible evidence of the high cost of climate change, people in Taiwan increasingly feel the importance of being a part of the earth. The city of Kaohsiung has decided to do something about it.

2009 Car Free Day activities.

Kaohsiung City Government organized the eighth edition of its annual Car Free Day in September this year, urging the public to use and to think about more green transport and experience energy-saving and environmental-friendly lifestyle.

To celebrate this event, Kaohsiung City Government invited the founder of the World Car Free Days, Eric Britton, to join and promote the concept of sharing low-carbon, high conviviality transportation, as a warm-up for the first session of the "Sharing Green Transportation International Forum" which will be held in Kaohsiung City from 16-19 September 2010.

In addition to the traditional city-wide Car Free Day celebrations and cycling events held on Sunday the 27th of September, the public transportation activities through the full new mobility week, including three days free ride of city bus, car-free day unlimited usage of public bicycle and the bus driver's selection, had let the public have more opportunities to take public transportation and develop sustainable public transport thinking.











2009 Car Free Day in Kaohsiung - Kaohsiung's mayor pushing for sustainable transport


Kaohsiung City - The making of a green transport-oriented city

Kaohsiung City Government continues its long term move towards the pursuit of green transport-oriented city.

In 2008, the 42.7 km mass rapid transit system and 24 bus rapid transit road network made the public transport usage percentage significantly increase from 4.3% to 11%.

In order to construct a more convenient MRT road network, Kaohsiung City Government is actively processing the 19.6 km light rail investment operations.

C-Bike: Public Bicycle project now on the street in Kaohsiung

In addition, encouraging commuters and tourists to choose a more environmental-friendly means of transport, Kaohsiung City Government has launched 50 stations and 4,500 bicycles for public bicycle system. (For more on this project please see http://www.c-bike.com.tw/eng/qanda.html)










The Public Cycling System in Kaohsiung – A 365 days a year green transport event

The city is committed to extending the total length of its bicycle paths from the current 110 kilometers to 180 km by the end of this year.

Plans for first World Shared Transport Conference – September 2010

The City of Kaohsiung has during this week of related events committed to hosting an international conference from 16 – 19 September 2009, that will for the first time bring a panel of world leaders working in the field of shared transport systems of many kinds together for an intense three day presentation and brainstorm on this transportation concept which is seeing innovation and rapid growth in many leading cities around the world.

Transport sharing is an important trend, one that is already starting to reshape at least parts of some of our cities. It is a movement at the leading edge of our most successful (and wealthiest and livable) cities.

This International Conference - the first of its kind -- will bring together leading thinkers and sharing transport practitioners from around Taiwan, Asia and the world, to examine the concept of shared transport (as opposed to individual ownership) from a multi-disciplinary perspective, with a strong international and Chinese-speaking contingent.

The concept of shared transport is at once old and new, formal and informal, and one that is growing very fast. Something important is clearly going on, and the Kaohsiung event look at this carefully, in the hope of providing a broader strategic base for advancing not just the individual shared modes, but the sustainable transport agenda more broadly.

Are we at a turning point? Is sharing already starting to be a more broadly used and relevant social/economic pattern? Is there an over-arching concept which we can identify and put to work for people and the planet?

These are some of the issues we will examine with prominent invited guests from the fields of economics, politics, psychology, who will join transportation experts to discuss these trends.

The conference will also delve deeper into specific shared transport modes and their applications in a series of parallel workshop sessions which will include various forms of carsharing, ridesharing, bikesharing, taxi-sharing, street-sharing and a number of others, as well as the integration of traditional sharing in the form of public transport.

Places at this event are limited, although for those unable to attend media and web coverage will be extensive.

* To learn more about the forthcoming conference, please visit – www.kaohsiung.newmobility.org
* Or get in touch via email: kaohsiung@newmobility.org

# # #

About the author:

Ray Hung
Traffic Management Center
Transportation Bureau
Kaohsiung City, Taiwan
Email：hideo@kcg.gov.tw

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Pedal Power (to the People)

Pedal Power, a new Canadian film about the phenomenal growth of city cycling produced by a Cogent/Benger Productions team under the direction of Christopher Sumpton and will be viewed for the first time today, September 24th, on national television in Canada (http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/ , 8pm). Repeating:Friday September 25, 2009 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld.


For the moment, the full film is available only in Canada on TV and internet streaming via the CBC. But hang in there: we will let you know when it becomes available worldwide. In the meantime, some excerpts can be seen on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqUoJFLsZKI(8 minutes) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX3p7EtEEds (30 second clip on sharing]. There is also a set of 6 short clips available at /u> http://www.cogentbenger.com/docs/pedalpower/video.php



Co-director’s notes by Christopher Sumpton

The excerpts show a little of Paris’ Velib’, featuring none other than World Streets Managing Editor, Eric Britton, as well as the origins of the White Bike with Luud Schimmelpennink in Amsterdam; a little of the bike lane scene in New York, and the new public bike system in Montreal (Bixi).

We did a quick tour of six cities, a miniscule slice of the global cycling picture, and along the way, two things were apparent: one, that cycling is bubbling up to the surface in conversations everywhere, and two, that car culture is very resilient and tremendous creativity will be needed for change to happen. My hope is that the film adds to public discussion and awareness of the issues.

The following are some thoughts from the filmmaking process.

Doing a film on cycling didn’t appear to be an “edgy” prospect. More like putting on a pair of comfortable slippers. After all, bicycles are the friendliest form of transport, besides being non-polluting and way up on the environmentally correct scale. For most people they also represent pleasant memories of childhood. They’re a rite of passage, a much-photographed milestone in growing up that’s shared between parent and child.

But it turns out that bicycles are the focus of heated debate and civic action. In the film we call the bicycle “revolution” a civil rights movement. The rights of cyclists might be compared to the rights of non-smokers, in the way that a tipping point is being reached and long-standing cultural assumptions (in this case that the roads belong to motorists) are suddenly overturned.

I think the car vs. bike battle is just getting under way. What’s dawning on many people, including civic planners and politicians, is that bicycles are important to the future of the city. Sustainability, livability, accessibility are the words being bandied about at conferences and symposia. It’s about how to ensure cities don’t strangle themselves on traffic and spawn a citizenry alienated from each other by the isolation of automobile-dictated sprawl.

It’s not really about bikes, it’s about the quality of life in the city. As cities become ever bigger and denser, it’s about how to make them suitable for people to interact with each other in public spaces, in other words roadways, sidewalks, squares, plazas, parks. It’s just that bicycling fits in with all that rather well.

The charm of the bicycle also comes from a retro thrill. Bicycles are a rare example of technological progress moving backward. The bicycle as we know it has been around since the advent of the “safety bicycle” in the early 1890’s: a low-mount structure on wheels of equal size, a chain-driven rear wheel and inflatable rubber tires. A huge wave of people took up mechanized travel at the time, several decades before the automobile age began.

This is the second wave. In this time where the technology we use (who knows how to fix a broken computer?) is increasingly beyond our understanding, the workings of the bicycle are visible and accessible. Simple and cheap, what a durable concept. The bike is the right thing at the right time. Compared to driving a car, its endlessly flexible: now I’m a fast-moving vehicle among other vehicles on the road, now I’m a pedestrian walking my bike down the sidewalk, now I’m riding through a park, now I’m tying up right outside a building where there’s no car parking for miles.

Why do cyclists take it all so personally? Because the bicycle is like a prosthetic device, an extension of our limbs. The power comes from the rider, not the thing ridden. As a method of transport, that’s unique. Not horsepower, not steam, not the electric tram, not the auto engine, but muscle melded to mechanics. And it’s inherently precarious: the whole enterprise takes alertness and attention (consciously or not) to keep from falling off. Plus you’re exposed to the world, putting your flesh and blood on the line.

So the doing the film was a bit like turning over a hornets’ nest. Passions are up, and everyone has an opinion about whether cycling is a good thing or a plague on the roads.

# # #

Christopher Sumpton is a Toronto-based documentary filmmaker who for the past ten years has produced films ranging from biography (Paul Anka, Jim Carrey) to wildlife (wolverines, sea otters) to social issues (violent video games, pornography). An abiding interest in sustainability led to his most recent film PEDAL POWER, about the growing “bicycle revolution”.

Christopher Sumpton, cas@cogentbenger.com
- www.cogentbenger.com
Toronto, Canada

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New York: Leading the way to the post-Motordom city?

New York City is changing, and safe and abundant cycling is part of the new face of the city. It's one thing to hear about it from those in the middle of the often painful process, but it can be bracing to ask an expert from outside to have a look and report what they see.

Gordon Price, keen observer of cities, politician, cyclist and World Streets Sentinel travels to NYC for us and reports what he sees. Signs of hope. Lessons for your city? In his words, this latest report of the Price Tags series on transforming world cities (www.pricetags.wordpress.com):

This is a celebration of active transportation in NYC – how New York is leading the way to the post-Motordom city. With an interesting comparison to Portland and Vancouver.

Visit New York City with Gordon and his camera, and check out the state of play as things stand as of summer 2009. Cycling NYC 2 presents 34 pages of photographs and commentary on what works, and what is causing friction as the cycling agenda gets pushed ahead by a strong team with high, consistent commitment from the highest levels of local government, with vigorous support from transport and environment groups, the non-profit sector, academics and specialized consultants, citizens and increasingly the media. (This last being a huge change in the local landscape and certainly one that you should be working on in your city. It pays off!).

If they can do it there, we can do it anywhere, might be a line to remember.



• For your copy of Cycling NYC 2, click http://pricetags.ca/pricetags/pricetags108.pdf

More on Gordon Price and his work:

Gordon is Director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University. A former six-time City Councilor in Vancouver, he has written extensively on Vancouver and transportation issues (The Deceptive City, Local Politician's Guide to Urban Transportation. He also publishes an electronic magazine on urban issues, called “Price Tags" (www.pricetags.ca). In 2009, he was appointed by the Mayor of Vancouver as a member of the “Greenest City Action Team.”

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Ik ben een Amsterdammer - New Amsterdam Bike Slam – II

World Streets strongly supports this creative, high-profile, positive public event which offers an open collaborative mechanism for helping New York and anybody else who is ready to learn from their experience to move together from old to new mobility.

The Slam approach offers a number of interesting and useful characteristics which those of us who care deeply about the transition to sustainable transportation have not always given sufficient play in the past -- so let's take a moment to note of some of these.

(A "slam", let's recall, has its origins in the poetry slams that got started back in the eighties: free-wheeling poetry recitations, with character, which tuned into lively competitions (think ice-skating or diving) in which the performance of the competitor/poets is marked by a panel of "experts" chosen from the audience. But all in the good spirit of poetry . . . or in our case in 2009, a safe cycling.)

1. The whole venture captures our attention by crossing a line in a surprising way, introducing up front an approach – the idea of a Slam -- which at once jolts and invites.

2. The whole approach is playful, creative and inviting. It based on what we can see thus far looks to us as if it is not going to bore (as is, sadly, all too often the case with standard plain vanilla conferences when you get right down to it.)

3. It is the sort of approach and event which, by dint of its originality and high energy level, is likely to achieve a high profile and excite considerable media and public interest.

4. It has many different parts. The melding of a symposium with leading international personalities and speakers, with a slam, and then in turn with a dance party, poetry, concept and design competition, award ceremony and a two-borough bike ride looks like a great way to maintain the momentum and interest over the four day event.

5. It is a positive event. This is an important point which should be get lost here, since it is in stark contrast to what we often hear and see when it comes to bicycles in US cities in which complaints and one-sided confrontational statements often rule the day.

6. The very idea of the event being organized as a transatlantic crossing originating in "Oud Amsterdam" is a sharp attention-getting idea.

7. The fact that it suggests a gentle partnership and not a situation of one-way lesson-giving makes it all more agreeable to all involved.

8. One hoped-for outcome will be that New Yorkers and other present will be exposed to a more mature picture of positive and negative aspects of cycle policy and practice in Amsterdam and in other Dutch cities. There is a great deal of wishful thinking on the part of anyone who has not had day-to-day experience on the streets there, and if you want a genuinely critical assessment of cycling in the Netherlands the best person to ask is a Dutch cyclist.

And let's not forget this: When we smile, our IQ goes up.

How it came about:

As best I understand, this all started as a conversation between a small group of committed cyclists in Old Amsterdam who have been following with real interest the recent attempts in New York on the part of a growing coalition of individuals and groups, public and non-profit, to create a more vigorous and safer cycling environment for day-to-day transportation in the city.

Under the leadership of Pascal van den Noort and his colleagues at Velo Mondial, the connection was made with the Transportation Alternatives group who have been leading the public interest push to support cycling in the city over many years. Then, as I understand it, when they approached the city, the team there under the NYC Department of Transportation's Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan recognized a good thing when they saw it and climbed aboard.

Once the basic principle and key team elements were secured, all it took was true grit and a lot of hard work, which brings us up to where we are today.

It remains to be seen of course what the actual results are. And you can be sure that we shall be reporting on them here both directly and through contributions including those of organizers and participants.

PS. And after this event we can all repeat those immortal words as we sail down the street: "Ik ben een Amsterdammer".
# # #

Again for all the latest: New Amsterdam Bike Slam .

For further information, contact:

* Shin-pei Tsay, Deputy Director, Transportation Alternatives, - http://www.transalt.org/about/contact
* Pascal van den Noort, Velo Mondial, - operations@velomondial.net

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New Amsterdam Bike Slam Symposium - An invitation

Four hundred years after Henry Hudson's arrival in Manhattan, two teams of Dutch and American planners & designers face off in a battle for the future of New York City transportation. Their challenge: find ways to bring NYC cycling up to the level of the Netherlands, the only country in the world with more bikes than people.

New Amsterdam Bike Slam is being organized in New Amsterdam (sometime also referred to as "New York City") from 10-13 September 2009. It is an initiative of Amsterdam Cycling to Sustainability, produced by Vélo Mondial and Transportation Alternatives, with funding from Transumo and the City of Amsterdam.

Full background on the program will be found here - http://newamsterdambikeslam.org/. The organizers have communicated the following information to us today by way of advance notice. (PS. It's free.)

Global Trends in Sustainable Mobility

New York and Amsterdam, like many other global cities, face challenges regarding mobility and requiring immediate solutions. An urgent look at necessary changes in mobility is the objective of the symposium ‘Global trends in sustainable mobility.’ For that purpose we have invited speakers to debate ideas that would further our thinking about cities and mobility.

How did Amsterdam and New York get to where we are now with regard to mobility and what analyses can we bring to the table? What are the systematic differences in urban planning between New York and Amsterdam? Do these differences only exist in the field of mobility or has it other psychological and cultural backgrounds? What makes cities not only livable, but attractive to live in, and what good can mobility bring or bad by making things disappear? Can cities live with less or no petrol cars at all and what does such an idea do to the economy? How will public transport play a role in the triangle with emission rich mobility and more sustainable modes of transport?

This issues will be discussed in the program: Global Trends to Sustainable Mobility

08.00 - 09.00 Breakfast
First we invite you for breakfast; also to get to know each other a little bit.

09.00 - 09.30 Opening
An political view will from New York - Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn
The Netherlands Frans Timmermans, Minister for European Affairs.

A vintage award ceremony will close this first half hour.

09.30 - 10.00 What lies in the future?
Former mayor of Bogota, now scholar, Enrique Penalosa will give an overarching talk on opportunities for New York and Amsterdam and how they can be realized.

10.00 - 10.20 Break
Coffee break and informal discussions with the speakers from the first session.

10.20 - 12.30 Trends Session
In the second session of this morning we will invite the next four speakers on stage and we intend to create as much of an interactive session with them as possible.
Speakers will be introduce their topics for a few minutes and then two moderators - Paul White from New York and ………. - will dig deeper with questions and challenges and involve the audience.

The speakers are:

* Heather Allen; Senior Manager Sustainable Development Union International Transport Public UITP Brussels
* Adnan Rahman; managing partner ECORYS Transport
* Willem de Jager; director Sustainable Mobility RABO bank
* Ruth Oldenziel; professor TU Eindhoven

12.30 - 14.00 Lunch
During lunch we will not only offer you food and drink, but we also invite you to continue the debate with the speakers of the morning and to start the discussion with the afternoon speakers.

14.00 - 17.00 Sustainable Mobility Salon
The kick-off of the salon - an informal way of gathering and exchanging views and knowledge - will be in the capable hands of Ruth Oldenziel who will dwell on historical, cultural and psychological backgrounds of planning for cycling in The Netherlands and the USA.

In three panels we will discuss:

Innovative cycling developments in The Netherlands

* Pieter de Haan Traffic Psychologist; staff member Institute for Shared Space
* Herman Gelissen: the Dutch alternative to the Public Bicycle OV FIETS
Moderator Peter Davidson

Cycling Planning in the USA and The Netherlands

* Arjen Jaarsma Balancia
* Jeff Olson, Alta Planning
* Moderator Andy Clarke; Executive Director League of American Bicyclists LAB

What does the future hold for Amsterdam and for New York?

* Paul White, Transportation Alternatives
* Pascal van den Noort, Velo Mondial / Amsterdam Cycling to Sustainability
Moderator TBA, ITDP

Drinks for attendants/ Dinner for speakers and guests

For further information, contact:

* Shin-pei Tsay, Deputy Director, Transportation Alternatives, - http://www.transalt.org/about/contact
* Pascal van den Noort, Velo Mondial, - operations@velomondial.net

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April Streeter reports on 50,000 public bikes in Hangzhou

Here you will find a bit of lively four continent viral reporting, rounding up news from numerous sources on the Hangzhou, China public bike project that has most of us non-Chinese speaking observers blinking in ignorance.

- April Streeter reporting from Gothenburg Sweden

Powering Past Paris, Hangzhou Will Have 50,000 Bike-Share Bikes

Tucked at the end of this great post about Hangzhou, China at the blog Code for Something was some pretty big news about the city's bike share. Hangzhou, with roughly the same number of inhabitants as Paris, is planning to whiz by the City of Lights (which has approximately 20,000 Vélib bike share bikes) by beefing up its offering from 16,000 to 50,000 bright orangey-red bikes by year's end.

Solving the 'final kilometer' puzzle

Tracing back to Paulo De Maio's Bike-Sharing blog for some more information, it seems the Hangzhou Public Transport Corporation set up the city's bike share scheme last year to aid, according to China.org.cn: "seamless connection of bicycle-based slow-speed traffic with metro and bus-based public traffic facilities," said Huang Zhiyao, general manager of Hangzhou Public Transport Corporation (HPTC).

Higher daily usage than Vélibs

The story goes on to describe how citizens and tourists alike have taken to the bike share scheme, which (even better than Vélib) offers users the first full hour of service for free. After that the next hour costs a modest one yuan ($.15), two yuan for the following hour and three yuan for every additional hour up to 24 hours. Hangzhou bikes don't have the flair of Vélib but are definitely serviceable, with plastic front baskets, a bike skirt, and a bell. By March of this year, the service was claiming each bike was used an average of 5 times daily. While it aims to be tourist friendly, it may take up to 10 days to get the bike deposit back for travelers.

But what, no vandalism?

In the most incredible piece of information in the China.org story, HPTC claims that not a single bike has been stolen in the service's first year of operation, and very few bikes (0.5%) are damaged or vandalized. Contrast that with the tale of woe told by JCDecaux, Vélib's operator, which claims that at least half of the original Vélibs were stolen, wrecked, or defaced. HPTC puts users who do not return bikes onto a black list and they are denied the ability to be part of the system for life! Pretty harsh.

Better technology than Vélib

HPTC claims that it has simplified the rental process compared with European bike share systems, by installing simpler POS systems that makes it easier for a user to end a rental and reportedly reduces rental time from about five minutes to just one minute, HPTC said. HPTC plans to become economically solvent by putting advertisements on
the bikes and at bike return spots.

To get more information on the Hangzhouz bike share, try going here to the (challeging but amusing) official site of the program and translate using Google Translate - http://www.hzzxc.com.cn/

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In this slot at the end of contributed articles, we generally try to place a few sober words that will permit our readers to know a bit about the author. But this time the temptation is too great, so now you have a short bio note in April's own words.

"April is a former bilingual cocktail waitress who left the warm beaches of Hawaii to pursue an upstanding career as reporter on the new and exciting digital world for MacWEEK magazine in San Francisco. When she finally couldn't stand the thought of writing about one more wireless local area network router, she recast herself as an environmental and sustainability journalist for Tomorrow magazine in Stockholm, Sweden. A few years later, she escaped the Scandinavian chill to become editor of Sustainable Industries magazine in Portland, Oregon. But eventually, the lure of endless months of darkness and sleety rain beckoned her back to Gothenburg, Sweden where she today is a freelance writer and Hatha yoga teacher forever on the lookout for a good/local/organic/sustainable/fair trade Swedish burrito."

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Public Bikes in Latin American Cities: Now what?

We are seeing some pretty good city-size public bike systems in cities like Paris, Barcelona, Lyon, and more recently Montreal -- and more than fifty smaller systems, most of which in Europe and all doing a pretty fair job at what they have set out to do. That's just fine. But what about the mega-cities of Latin America?

Will shared bike projects work out there? And if they are to have a shot at success how should they be planned, configured, implemented and then made to do the job day after day in the full stream of the continent's exciting traffic and city life.

That was the issue that Eric Britton of the New Mobility Partnerships and World Streets was asked to address in an open brainstorm organized by the WRI EMBARQ team in Cuernavaca Mexico on 2 July 2009.

* Click here for PowerPoint presentation: ecoplan.org/library/ws-embarq.ppt

Britton was asked specifically to report on the role that public or shared bike systems might eventually play in Latin American cities, against the background of their successful implementation for the most part in rather different environments. There has been considerable interest shown by politicians, some planners and transporters, public interest groups (mainly cyclists of course) and the media across the region over the last year or so. But how to move ahead with a concept which until now has been largely successful in European cities, under circumstances on the ground that differ considerably in most cases.

* Click here for PowerPoint presentation: http://ecoplan.org/library/ws-embarq.ppt

"What next?" -- Keep pedaling
This presentation represents his attempt to open up the discussions and at the same time to plant a few seeds. He looks for clues to what might be adapted and approached quite differently in these for the most part quite different environments. His closing message: Keep on pedaling, you can get there.

Reference:
World Public Bike Consortium at www.publicbike.newmobility.org (Offers extensive references and sources.)

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Public Bikes – How big a system? And why?

One of the complaints currently being voiced in the UK press about the new public bike start-up in the city of Bristol is that it is too small, insufficiently visible and generally hard to get at – and that it thus fails to achieve the level of massive use that is necessary if what you want is a city transformation project. Is that what your public bicycle project is supposed to do? Transform your city?

It can you know. Not all by itself of course but if you put it together with a carefully thought out integrated package of new mobility measures you can create a powerful component of the transformational process. (For background on the Bristol project see our 23 July piece on this “Thoughts on a shared bike project in the UK: Part I” at http://newmobilityagenda.blogspot.com/2009/07/shared-bike-project-in-uk-part-i.html for background.)

For some useful perspective on this you may want to check out the example of Paris and the Vélib' through a handful of short videos, plus one full length TV documentary, all of which can be accessed here with a single click.

* A 30 second trailer announcing the PBS documentary on Vélo Liberté and the Greening of Paris – at http://www.pbs.org/e2/transport.html

* 3 minute, interesting because it provides some discussion of why a big ambitious project was for the team behind the project in Paris’s’ City Hall was the way to go for Paris - same link, just below the above.

* An extended 6 minute version which hones in on the relationship between bikesharing and carsharing (lesson: proceed with caution, but be sure to proceed!) - at http://blip.tv/play/AcvUegA

* The full half hour PBS documentary can be viewed (small screen but entirely viewable) if you click to http://www.e2-series.com/, click Webcast, then Paris.

* Words from a satisfied user, from Vélo Liberté.

Copies of the DVD of the full e² transport series can be obtained for $25.00 from the Public Broadcasting System bookshop via http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=3333834&cp=&sr=1&kw=paris&origkw=paris&pg=2&parentPage=search#Details

Additionally, if you want another perspective on Vélib, have a look at the enjoyable Streetfilms piece: Vélib' – The Greening of Paris - http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/velib (8 minutes). And the Perils for Pedestrians interview here at http://blip.tv/file/2363567/.

Brainfood from Paris. Bon appétit!

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Perils for Pedestrians comes to Paris to learn about Vélib

Perils for Pedestrians is a monthly cable TV program dedicated to improving the quality of the pedestrian environment in the US and Canada. Perils' director John Z. Wetmore came to Paris to interview some of the locals to get their views on bicycles, public space, and Vélib' for a series for North American cable television.

- John Z. Wetmore reporting from Paris

Wetmore to Britton on Vélib'
One of these looks straight at Vélib' and captures a 15 minute dialogue with the editor of World Streets. You can pick up Mr. Wetmore's questions and their exchange by clicking here to http://blip.tv/file/2363567/. (Interestingly enough, while this program was shot here in Paris last winter it actually arrived here on the day of Velib's second anniversary - see "Happy birthday Vélib', now you are two".)

The two full length programs which you can access directly from here include:

Perils for Pedestrians - Episode 157: Paris 1 and 2 http://blip.tv/file/2359879

1. Perils travels to Paris to talk with Jean Paul Lechevalier about walking in Paris and their public interest group, Les Droits du Piéton (The Rights of Pedestrians), active for many years here in Paris and in many other parts of France through their national association.

Contact:
Les Droits du Piéton - http://www.pietons.org
Maison des Associations du 1er Arrondissement
Forum des Halles - Cidex N° 209
75045 Paris cedex 1e
Tel/Fax : 01 43 35 08 04 pieton@wanadoo.fr

2. Perils looks at the Vélib' public bicycle system in Paris with Eric Britton of New Mobility Partnerships and World Streets (above).


Episode 158: Paris 3 and 4 - http://blip.tv/file/2361252/

3. Perils talks with two young cyclists to get their views on day to day cycling in Paris.

4. Perils talks with Norma Mashaal of "MDB - Mieux se Déplacer à Bicyclette" ("Better to Move around by Bicycle"), Paris's oldest and most active cycling group to get the big picture on cycling in the City of Light. (Executive summary: The success of Vélib' was not in fact born in one day.)

Contact:
MDB - Mieux se Déplacer à Bicyclette. http://mdb-idf.org
32 rue Raymond Losserand, 75014 PARIS
Tél : 01 43 20 26 02 courrier@mdb-idf.org

Both episodes will be screened on The Universityhouse Channel in the U.S. on July 21 and 28. Check your local station schedule for exact times.

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Editor's comment:

In the context of Vélib' and the more general "Greening of Paris" program behind it and many of the other mobility innovations that are on-going here, how many times have we received radio, television, and film teams from around the world who come to Paris to meet, observe, interview, and try out for themselves some of the new mobility modes which are together changing the face of this city? In the last two years alone we have shaken the hands, looked in the eyes and tried to answer the questions of filmmakers and reporters from places as far away as India, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Pakistan, Australia, and the United States.

It is a consistent pleasure to receive and work with them. It is also a real learning process for us each time. And all this has led to a growing inventory of media almost all of which are freely available to anyone on the planet with a single click. (For a working guide to many of these that we have participated in, let us point you to www.media.newmobility.org.)

Image after image, program after program, film after film, all of this work is slowly coming together to get the word out. Each project has its own special touch. Nothing is redundant since there is a huge and needful world out there and these are new messages.

Do you have an idea for a video, podcast, radio or television program on any of the topics which we are working hard to cover under World Streets? If so, do not hesitate to get in touch. One by one, step after step, we will together get the message out.

Related New Mobility media:

* PBS prime time documentary (Dec. 2008), now available at http://www.e2-series.com/, click Webcast, then Paris.

* Vélib – The Greening of Paris - http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/velib (8 minutes)

* From bikeshare to carshare (Not so fast!) - http://blip.tv/play/AcvUegA (5 minutes)

* Rethinking Streets in Paris - http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/rethinking-streets-in-paris/ (6 minutes)

* Mobilien: Paris’ Version of Bus Rapid Transit - http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/mobilien/ (4 minutes)

* Vélib' cycles in Paris (7 Aug. 2007, 10 minutes) Interviews and images on the occasion of the opening of the Vélib' project in Paris. Cycling as a new form of urban public transport. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDBfwU6zni8

* Vélib' Cycles in Pune (12 Aug. 2007, 9 minutes) A Vélib' project in Indian cities. Is it possible? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLjT9g11y-4

* The Greening of Paris (Vol. 1) Draft of one part of a film under preparation in support of the Greening of Paris component of the New Mobility Agenda's program "Reinventing Transport in Cities". - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTHXawO-t0Y. (The full rushes (19 minutes) can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTHXawO-t0Y)

* Contested Streets A documentary produced by the New York City advocacy group Transportation Alternatives with
new footage of reclaimed streets in London, Copenhagen and Paris and features interviews with leading figures in NYC, London, Paris and Copenhagen. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF4Q2badOng

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Thoughts on a shared bike project in the UK: Part I

A newspaper article generally critical of the new bikeshare scheme in Bristol UK cites the city's abundant hills and a general absence of bikes and stations as obstacles to success. We decided to publish the original piece (fair use) here, and then invite the team responsible for the project to state their case. What is actually going on in Bristol?

A Paris-style bicycle scheme in Bristol? Now there's an uphill slog

* Click here for Guardian article by John Crace of Tuesday, 22 July 2009.

On a rainy morning, few takers for country's first citywide ride-and-go plan:

It's a miserable morning in the centre of Bristol. The rain is tipping down and only a halfwit would think of hiring a bike in this weather. So count me in.

Ride-and-go cycle schemes are a familiar part of the cityscape on mainland Europe. Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin all have well-established cycle networks, but somehow Britain has always rather lagged behind.

There are small local schemes in Southport, Cardiff, Hammersmith and Fulham, in London, and only yesterday Blackpool's opened for business. But the closest we have to a whole-city scheme is in Bristol – Britain's first designated Cycle City – where Hourbike operates with some support from the council.

The deal is straightforward. You register for a one-off fee of £10 and for that you get a code that lets you turn up to one of the cycle hubs and ride a bike. The first half-hour is free, any time over that works out at about £1 a hour (the idea is to undercut local car parking charges) and you can return the bike to any of the hubs dotted around the city.

Through the drizzle, I punch in the code, the electromagnetic lock is released and I have control of Daniel. The bikes all have names which are cuter than the cycles themselves because they are on the streets 24/7 and the idea is to make them solid and anonymous so that people don't nick them.

So Daniel and I are ready but where to go for a test cycle? There are three other hubs in the centre and a couple more on the edge of the city near the University of the West of England, but I've no idea exactly where as there isn't a map. Never mind. Andy, the street cleaner, should be able to help out. "There's one outside the Royal Infirmary," he says, "but I can't say I've seen anyone using the bikes at either place." Are you round this way often? "Every day".

So I head off to hospital and soon discover another reason – apart from the weather – why no else is on a hire bike: it's almost impossible to go anywhere in Bristol without going up a hill (I wonder if I'll see any locals with colossal Tour de France-style muscled thighs). At the infirmary there's a couple of bikes corralled at the hub, but still no sign of riders. Jim, a hospital technician, says he has never seen one.

There's a bus stop next to the hub and no sign of a bus. Jo has been waiting for at least 10 minutes. Would she fancy a go on a bike? "It sounds like a good idea," she says, "but I don't think so."

But it's all downhill from here. "Maybe another time."

I cycle round aimlessly for a while longer looking for another Hourbike but then reckon enough's enough and tie Danny up for the day and head home.

It's still early days. There are large parts of the city that still aren't covered, though the bigger problem is winning punters' hearts and minds. Tim Caswell, the managing director of Hourbike, which started the Bristol scheme earlier this year, refuses to be discouraged. "We've got about 300 people registered so far," he says. "And with the help of the council we're looking to increase the number of hubs and bikes so we've got most of the city covered. This is the way forward and we are committed to it."

Getting it right is easier said than done. You can't really pilot them by sticking a couple of bikes in the centre of town and hoping for the best, because people won't see the point. It's only when the full infrastructure is in place that it works. So you've got to be prepared to invest – and so far, especially with local government feeling the pinch, councils have tended to play safe by doing nothing.

"There's a tendency to think there's only one model," said Phillip Darnton, who chairs Cycling England, an independent body set up by the government to promote pedal power. "Not everything has to be on the scale of the Paris Velib or TfL's proposals for London. These are both large schemes aimed at significantly reducing commuter congestion: towns such as Southport, which has also just opened a cycle-hire scheme, are looking more to recreate the ambience of the seaside town, so they need something much less intensive."

Even so, Britain does not have the best track record when it comes to promoting cycling. A bike hire scheme in Cheltenham has just closed and the London mayor, Boris Johnson, has managed to get on the wrong side of several councils with his plan to tear up several of their car parking bays to install cycle hubs and rob them of some revenue – so there's still a lot of politicking to be done before London comes on stream.

So how come we're so rubbish at cycle schemes and mainland Europe has been so successful? "It's partly cultural," said Marie, a Paris resident. "Cycling is seen as normal in France, whereas in Britain it's often more about macho types in Lycra. But it's also because people are less afraid of cycling in Paris because our drivers are so much better than yours." Now there's a thought.

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* Click here for reader comments to Guardian article. If you are interested in bike sharing or bikes in cities for that matter, these diverse voices make an interesting read.

* And here for the Hourbike promotional video

Next: We will now invite Tim Caswell, the managing director of Hourbike, the group responsible for this project, along with the city of course who are in fact the owner of this project, to hear what he has to say about the project and more generally his views of bikesharing in Britain, including perhaps why thus far the UK has lagged well behind the first tier countries.

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Happy Birthday Vélib': Now you are two

Well here you are dear child, already two years old and for such a young thing you have certainly been very active over these first 730 days. And all that while learning to speak to your visitors in English, Spanish, German and Italian, as well as French. Quite an accomplishment for a two year old. But that's not all.

More than 50 million rides, going on three hundred thousand annual pass holders, and finally the full complement of 20,000 bikes on the streets. And as if that were not enough, here you are already venturing out into thirty surrounding towns and suburbs to give each of them Vélib's of their own. You turned out to be too good a present for Paris to keep you for itself.

You, and the Paris and JCDecaux teams that make you work day after day, have been busy continually fine-tuning your bikes, maintenance procedures, station locations, software, like redistribution and everything else that it takes to make you an appreciated partner of Paris's first-rate, internationally competitive, affordable new mobility system.

Few of us really understood at the beginning how important you were going to be, and I bet that even you did not fully appreciate the extent that you would become part of a major transformation process. And the degree to which you would become world known.

And those of us who hop on your bikes every day – our editor for example estimates that he has made more than 2000 trips, most of which worked out very well – are in a pretty good position to appreciate your contribution. It is not that you are perfect, oh no! but certainly good enough that for many of us you have become a part of our daily mobility solution, an almost always agreeable part of our day to day lives. You don't have to be absolutely perfect, almost perfect will do just fine.

A trained Vélib’ user (it was you that trained us dear Vélib’) has a whole series of backup strategies just in case we do not find a working bicycle at the first station or a parking slot when making a mad dash for a transit connection -- and for still somehow getting wherever it is we need to go when we need to get there. We love you most of all, but if the rain is too hard, the snow is falling, or we cannot find that bike, we have a workaround. That is part of our partnership deal with you.

And now let us have a look at your 2009 birthday gift.

This is an important day and we have been giving this a fair amount of thought over the last weeks, and when you give a gift you really want it to be useful, and used. And of course the best gifts are the ones that can be shared.

We would very much like to come up with a present this year that would help you to deal with the problems associated with your nice bicycles which are too often being vandalized or stolen. As the world knows, those are big numbers and really do need attention and ingenious ways of dealing with them. But that is sufficiently challenging that we have to back off this time and can only promise to give it thought we would share ideas from many parts with this as they come in.



So our gift this year is one that we hope you will like. We want to help you with what is probably your Number 2 operational problem, smoothing the distribution of bikes over the system. Here is what we propose.

A sketch plan for using small financial incentives for getting and improve distribution of bikes throughout the system.

We are well aware that smoothing the redistribution process is not one that is unique to Paris and that is a fundamental structural problem that needs to be dealt with just about everywhere in a strategic manner. So here is our gift proposal. By the numbers:

1. We propose you introduce an overlay software system to provide small financial incentives for anyone who parks a bicycle in a station which is empty (or almost empty). Which will also apply to anyone who picks up a bicycle from a station which is full (or almost full).

2. In other words, make us the users and the beneficiaries part of the solution.

3. This process can work of course only where there is a basic logistics/financial system which will support it. But in your case Vélib’ we think you have in place just about everything you need to make this one work. (And many of your brothers and sisters in other cities should be able to do this as well.)

4. The idea is to automatically credit a specific sum to registered users who provide these valuable services. There are several key details which need to be figured out before going ahead, which include the following:

5. What exactly should be the sum awarded to participants? One Euro, two, three? Well that will depend on balancing (a) what works as an incentive on the one hand, and (b) the costs you presently have to bear for manual distribution.

6. What exactly should be the "station threshold', i.e., should the award be made only to those who add a first bike to an empty station, or should it be also made for second and third bikes being brought in? And ditto for freeing places in a full stand? This the operator will be well-positioned to figure out, and in any event by nature of the flexibility of the underlying logistics system, this can be played with and fine-tuned in the early stages of the project.

7. Behind all this, it is useful to have precise information on the cost of physically moving a bike at present. Our own best guess, not only for Paris but for the more than a dozen other systems that we have visited and observed, is that this has to run on the order of four Euros per bike, plus or minus 2. But this of course the city and the operator will know.

8. Such payments will of course be made only to people holding annual passes, However it may also be worth considering whether a special arrangement might be set up in which users register for the program and the financial incentives that go along with it.

9. An advantage of this approach, which we might call "dynamic redistribution" as opposed to physically lugging the bikes around, is that it is a continuous process, with all the advantages that this entails

10. One final advantage that comes to mind is that something like this increases the feeling of public ownership of the system, which in itself is one of the tools you need to fight against the problems of bicycle theft and abuse. It will not deal with all aspects of that challenge, but it is one of the many small steps that can be taken to drive down those numbers to something which is financially and socially tolerable.

So there you have it your Vélib’, World Streets present to you on this important day. And hey! as we were saying, this is the kind of gift that you can both use yourself and share with the world. So do it, and our friends in Barcelona, Montreal, Seville, Rome and the more than one hundred cities in the world that have already installed their own public bicycle system. And the thousand or so cities that are looking to you dear Vélib’ for ideas, encouragement and your example.

You have been a very good girl. Thank you.

Happy birthday Vélib’!

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