The Velibs are coming?

@spoil_sport wrote:

I think it comes down to a matter of perception, and not actual safety. This is my main problem with the helmet, it portrays cycling as something dangerous.
I would like to see current stats on how many pedestrians are killed or injured vs cyclists, and a more detailed breadown, but of what I can find:

In 2005, out of the total of 399 deaths on Irish roads, 71 (18%) were pedestrians while 11 (2%) were cyclists.
From the National Safety Council website.

In order to be relevant to this debate, we’d have to know:
1. the proportion of pedestrians to cyclists in general, and
2. how many of those cyclists were wearing helmets.

I’d imagine that the pedestrians:cyclists is far more than 7:1.

Also, helmets apparently protect you from impacts of about 14mph. So they won’t protect you if a truck drives over your head.

From the Evening Herald yeaterday:

Our cycle-unfriendly city is not ready for free bikes
By LORRAINE COURTNEY
Monday August 17 2009

In 2006, Dublin City Council announced that a deal had been made with outdoor advertising company JCDecaux: free bikes for the city, in exchange for free advertising space. It’s finally happening this September.

The city council stands to get 450 bicycles, 40 bicycle stations, billboard advertising and a series of fingerposts directing tourists to city attractions. JCDecaux will earn millions from the scheme.

The French company cut its teeth on such bikes-for-posters deals in Lyon.

The Velo’v scheme was later renamed and rolled out in Paris in 2007. The Parisian Velib (its name is a contraction of velo and libre) scheme has had some success. There are more than 20,000 bikes on the streets, a rank every 300 metres and more than two million journeys made every month. Parking spaces are being taken over by Velib rental ranks, commuters can pay for their bike journeys with their integrated transport swipe card and hundreds of kilometres of cycle lanes are being built.

Dublin is only getting a small fleet of 450 bikes. And while the council didn’t pay for the bikes, the public will have to pay to use them.

Before you can take a bike, you must first either buy a Smart Card for €10 on the new website or alternatively put a charge of €150 on your credit card. This registration will activate your account.

The first 30 minutes usage is free, and thereafter, it costs 50 cent per half hour.

You can deposit the bikes at any other station around the city, providing there is a free space for it. If you don’t return the bike, your time clocks up, as does the money you are charged for the rental.

Utopia

Is the self-service bicycle the perfect solution to congestion on our streets? It seems too good to be true. Dublin City Council don’t need to cough up a cent. Traffic jams will disappear. Carbon emissions will drop and we’ll become a utopia of peddling commuters. Anyone who’s tried to negotiate the city centre recently knows that it lacks a dedicated bike-lane system to safely support existing, let alone additional, cyclists. There are simply not enough cycle lanes and cycle paths.

Some of the space dedicated to cyclists on busy thoroughfares is so limited as to be of little value to the inexperienced or people well used to cycling. And because of poor enforcement, even these narrow lanes can often be blocked by carelessly parked cars.

When the Velib cycling scheme was introduced in Paris a few years ago, the city authorities made sure to allocate more space on the streets for cyclists. But there is no indication that there will be a corresponding increase in the number or width of cycle lanes in the capital.

Hung from lampposts, drowning in the Seine, broken and torched to pieces, the Parisian bikes are proving expensive to maintain.

JCDecaux must be struggling to fund a system with such a rapid turnover. The most common vandalism reported by the repair personnel is tyre-slashing, but bikes are also being stolen and are very rarely recovered.

There are reports of the specially made models turning up in Eastern European locations and even in Africa.

More worryingly, the Parisian bikes have fallen victim to a new craze dubbed Velib Extreme.

Young riders are stealing and pushing the bikes to the extreme on BMX courses and fast descents down the long stairs of the Montmartre hill and jumps.

Daredevil stunts are filmed and then posted on YouTube. A scheme that intends making urban travel more civilised might end up increasing anti-social behaviour and bringing about more accidents.

There is one upside to it all though. The tipsy will have an alternative to queuing for a taxi home on Friday nights.

– LORRAINE COURTNEY

I dont think that the bikes will be an alternative to taxis at all, apart from the system not being available late at night, to avoid drunken cyclists, unless you live within a 10-15 min walk of the center of the city you wont have a place to park it. And you’re hardly going to get a taxi (or bus for that matter) such a short distance.
If you live outside of the city center then the bikes are not suitable for travelling to/from home anyway.

It’s a very good point about cycle lanes and safety. If we are breaking with the French Velib system by not bothering to provide adequate cycle lanes and enhance safety there is a genuine risk that there will be serious accidents as a result of the new bikes on the streets. DCC surely have a duty of care to manage this risk and will, in perhaps a short time, as soon as the first serious accident happens have no choice but to shut down the system.

Afterall the bikes are designed for tourists and city cycling novices to jump on and have a go!

Another fine piece of journalism from the herald. All nonsense… you don’t get charged 150 euro. There is alot of banter about not being able to find a space to park it… I’ve used the system in 3 different cities on busy weekends and never had a problem. there’s nearly double the parking space for them as bikes, and they get re-distributed.

There is also simply no point in comparing city with city and what’s going to happen to them. The only way to know is to introduce it. Dublin is a flat city, and despite what people think, its not that dangerous to cycle around. Cars and buses generally take alot of care when they see a cyclist, if your breaking lights, cycling down one way streets as some cyclists do [im guilty of the former!], then the risk increases. There will be accidents but that’s life. looking forward to it all i must say.

All nonsense… you don’t get charged 150 euro.

If you choose to subscribe by direct debit you will need to:

Send proof of address (original utility bill within the last 3 months)

Include a debit authority which will be used for the subscription (€10), monthly service charges, and a €150 deposit* if the db is not returned within any 24 hour period

http://www.dublinbikes.ie/subscription/long_term_hire_card__1/long_term_card_holder

I’m wondering what the monthly ‘service’ charges might be??

@Smithfield Resi wrote:

All nonsense… you don’t get charged 150 euro.

http://www.dublinbikes.ie/subscription/long_term_hire_card__1/long_term_card_holder

I’m wondering what the monthly ‘service’ charges might be??

the monthly service charges are any time you spend on the bike over and above the free 30 mins.

so if you use it for the 30 mins every day for a month, you get no monthly service charge.
but remember you can take the bike for 30 mins for free, park it back up and 5 mins later take it again for 30 mins for free.

once you keep within the free 30 mins, then you will get No monthly service charges.

Ok thanks its helpful but I will put it more bluntly…

Why not put the bikes near the advertisement at Grafton st junction?
What is the footfall for St Stephens green east?
These two items could not be more contradictory they want to sell things and they want people to impulse use a product being the bike… The location is one and the same thing…
However the more the product is used the more it costs in maintenance a clear conflict.
You can have all the bikes you want but it will mean nothing if they are not in the right position and you miss out on 15,000 pedestrians an hour seeing them at peak times in one location alone.

More printed opinion about the ‘Yokes on spokes'”
This scheme is really not impressing anyone, there is little benefit from it to the city I guess.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0828/1224253399047.html

Is there a point you’d like to make missarchi?

@StephenC wrote:

Is there a point you’d like to make missarchi?

trying to get to her 1000th post. Pity it’s only the 100th relevant one.

@wearnicehats wrote:

a great deal of the sites are a not very taxing hoof away from each other.

True true, and the type of person who would get a bus or taxi from say Jervis Street to Stephens Green is not the type of person who is going to cycle.

They will make as much (even if) contribution to public transport in Dublin as the free eco-cab trike thingy’s

Who here has been on one? http://www.ecocabs.ie/
I’ve always wanted to try just for the laugh but no one will go with me 🙁