The Velibs are coming?

@missarchi wrote:

no Heuston or Connolly? i’m not seeing a map or clear integration

They probably need all available space there for more hideous advertising.
Integration and sensible siting of the stations would pre-suppose that the bicycles and getting people cycling was the point of this debacle.

@Smithfield Resi wrote:

Not free: The human cost of someone getting seriously hurt or injured by walking out from behind the dangerous footpath ‘metropanels’
😡

@missarchi wrote:

So far five people have been killed on the bikes…
I wonder how?

The same way people are killed on every other kind of bike… I just love that there’s always a comment about how dangerous new things are, especially when they are strictly as dangerous as the identical things they are derived from… Riding a bike in a city is hardly a danger-free thing to do in the best of cases, in fact walking in the street is a pretty risky thing to do too, “metropanels” aren’t going to change that, in fact, they could even be handy shields to protect people from golf umbrellas 😀

@Smithfield Resi wrote:

Love all the spin about ‘free’ bikes

Not free: 50c an hour plus a joining fee.
Not free: €185m in lost revenue to the city

This kind of bike system has never been free to use, as far as I know. I’m wondering if the whole “free” thing isn’t just a mistranslation of the French name “Velib”, the Lib(re) bit meaning Free as in freedom, not as in free of charge… In Paris, it’s 1€ per half hour, so 50c an hour looks pretty good to me.
Where does the “€185m in lost revenue to the city” come from? :confused:

@missarchi wrote:

36. St. Stephens Green East
37. St. Stephens Green South

um are they assuming they will move them in 6 years?

no Heuston or Connolly? i’m not seeing a map or clear integration

Looks like Connolly is served on Amiens street

I disagree that the Dublin hosting unit is of cheap design – it is almost identical to the Lyon model, only even better detailed and of a more muted dark grey. Spot on.

Here is one of the installations on Exchequer Street outside Fallon & Byrne. I’ll leave to it others to raise remarks involving organic humous and its new ease of access from Portobello of a Sunday morning.

Another installation on South Leinster Street just east of the Alliance Française.

The siting of many of these units highlights just how much of the city is consumed by bloody on-street parking, from which DCC generates a fortune and has no incentive to remove. More of its eradication in this way and for the benefit of pedestrians please.

I must say I’m delighted at how regular, even sculptural, the installations look in their ordered layout, appealing greatly to my Germanic sense of efficiency. Not remotely cluttering. Some real elegance could emerge if they were laid out in crescents where appropriate.

I noticed these poles being installed in town over the w/e and should have twigged it.

Good to see this happening, though I agree with all the reservations people have expressed – yes there are nowhere near enough of them, and yes they unfortunately will suffer from a certain level of vandalism. Tough shit on Decaux they’ll just have to grin and bear it. They’ve certainly taken a lot from our pushover council so far – I object to the advertisements being in place a full year (is that how long it’s been?) in advance of the bikes being installed. It’s supposed to be bikes in exchange for ads, not loads of ads and then finally some bikes ages later.

@GrahamH wrote:

Another installation on South Leinster Street just east of the Alliance Française.

I’m not following the logic in this location… there are a few students around though…

paris is burning… (does any one recognise the car scenes from a famous movie?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gTZNZ4pLIQ

ac1976: At a guess, I’d say most of the damage in the photos you’ve posted was as a result of cars, not ignorant citizens.

@DjangoD wrote:

I asked one of the lads installing the terminal things up at Portobello when they were expected to be functioning and he reckons within six to seven weeks.

How long until they all end up at the bottom of the canals or Liffey is another thing though. Maybe seven to eight weeks.

@sw101 wrote:

that mindset baffles me. something appears in your city and all you thing to do with it is steal it, thrash it and throw it into the nearest ditch or body of water. the world would be a more beautiful place if every single thing didn’t have to be designed to be vandal-proof and scumbag-proof.

I have to say, I find the type of comment below equally negative.

@GrahamH wrote:

Here is one of the installations on Exchequer Street outside Fallon & Byrne. I’ll leave to it others to raise remarks involving organic humous and its new ease of access from Portobello of a Sunday morning.

My reservations about this scheme don’t need rehearsing, but I haven’t commented before on one aspect of the siting. It’s great to see on-street car parking being replaced with these, but it’s disappointing to note that some existing cycle parking has been removed to accommodate them. This is NOT the answer. Cycle parking in Dublin City is already inadequate, and we need more of it in addition to the bike hire stations, not less of it by virtue of the arrival of the scheme.

Nice idea and all that but I recken they will be vandalised and robbed. Too many scumbags about, especially at St.Audeons where the junkies congregate. BTW, was it a Green Party idea? Kinda naive not to take stock of the more rougher and ‘anti social’ elements of Irish society when considering this.

@ctesiphon wrote:

ac1976: At a guess, I’d say most of the damage in the photos you’ve posted was as a result of cars, not ignorant citizens.

I have to say, I find the type of comment below equally negative.

My reservations about this scheme don’t need rehearsing, but I haven’t commented before on one aspect of the siting. It’s great to see on-street car parking being replaced with these, but it’s disappointing to note that some existing cycle parking has been removed to accommodate them. This is NOT the answer. Cycle parking in Dublin City is already inadequate, and we need more of it in addition to the bike hire stations, not less of it by virtue of the arrival of the scheme.

From what I have seen existing cycle parking has been replaced near where these new Bad Boys have been installed. Some Velib stands were put in next to DIT Bolton Street where an existing bike rack once stood, but the bike rails were re-installed a few metres up the street as part of the same operation. Hope that sensisble approach persists across the city.

My worry about this scheme is whether it will be undermined by the rising levels of Bicycle snobbery that I’m witnessing everyday. There are some folk who wouldn’t be caught dead riding anything other than a fixey, and will Velib riders now be considered members of the lowest Caste? (Just above taxi drivers, of course, who are mainly sub-human) 😀

But is that representative, ac1976? And where is it? I can’t imagine it was the 16th arrondissement. You would expect a certain amount of that in any big city. But from that post and your previous post the scheme looks like a complete write off.

Ther will of course be some vandalism of the bikes in Dublin cos we have plenty of shitheads. The question is how much.