The Velibs are coming?
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Once again the downsides of this deal only become apparent after the the fact.
Why is it that JC Decaux are now apparently trying to deter the beneficial aspect of a remarkably poor deal from functioning to its full potential?
Why is it JC Decaux are able to float kites such as recently touting the bikes themselves would be available to rent as advertising space?
Who has the right to potentially useful information from use of the bikes and the stations – seemingly – once again – not the city.
Where has it ever been explained the origins of the dodgy rezoning map, entitled “zones of advertising control”, which was used by DCC officials at BP hearings – although no councillor had ever voted on the same?
Why did the city agree a deal where JC Decaux projected an income of €63m from the new advert units?
Moreover why did the city accept the €63m figure when the potential revenue from just one of the larger units is €3.9m?
Where is the Independent Road Safety Audit that was to be conducted on the new billboard units?
Why was there deliberate suppression of the contract until the Ombusdman forced it into the open?
Has there been any attempt to make accountable the city officials and certain councillors who got such a prize bum deal for the city?
What enforcement has there been of the removal of 100 existing billboards has there been, that was part of the deal?
What enforcement is there of JC Decaux’s continued development and use of unauthorised structures – see the new trivision structure at the junction of Killeen and Nangor Roads, or at Newcomen Bridge in the North Strand for more.
Where is Minister for the Environment John Gormley in all of this – what if any action has he taken to get answers?
So many questions. So few answers. 😡
Still its nice to the city council’s commercial partner issue such heavy-handed legal threats to a non-commercial initiative that was only seeking to assist Dubliners get use of the scheme.
For the record while Dublin got a rotten deal from this – trying to allow 120 billboards for 450 bikes, whereas Paris got 13 bikes in exchange for each billboard allowed, if it hadn’t been for this site and the scrutiny given to the matter, according to city planner Jim Keoghan the original intention was to allow 170 billboards. Ultimately Decaux have gotten away with only 70 approx. Boo-hoo for Decaux.
Free iPhone application for bike scheme withdrawn
CHARLIE TAYLOR
A FREE iPhone application for users of Dublin’s bicycle rental scheme has been withdrawn after the software firm which developed it was threatened with legal action by the advertising agency backing the new initiative.
The real-time application allows users of the scheme to find their nearest Dublinbikes station and see how many bicycles and spaces are available at it.
Fusio, the company behind the application, was sent a cease and desist letter from JC Decaux earlier this week in which it was told that legal action would be considered if it continued to offer the mobile application for download.
The application, which was only released at the end of August, has proven to be highly successful, with some 3,000 downloads over the past three weeks, making it one of the most popular Irish applications available at the iTunes AppStore.
More than 6,000 people have subscribed to the Dublinbikes scheme, which was introduced on September 15th. The initiative is being funded by JC Decaux in exchange for advertising space in the capital.
Fusio’s application uses data which is freely available on the Dublinbikes website. This is then plotted on to Google Maps. The application uses the iPhone’s built-in GPS to allow users to get up-to-the minute information on the availability of bikes. Additional data used in the application was provided by Dublin City Council.
Fusio insists it sought permission to use data from JC Decaux prior to releasing the application.
Diarmaid Mac Aonghusa, Fusio managing director, said the company had decided to produce the application solely as a development project to draw attention to its ability to develop similar applications for clients.
“We were offering the application for free and had received a number of phone calls from members of the public congratulating us on it, which is something that rarely happens in the IT world. So we’d obviously developed an application which was proving to be popular. However, when we were advised that legal action was possible, we felt we had no option to withdraw the application.â€
Although iPhone users who have already downloaded the application will still be able to use it, it is no longer available for download at the AppStore and no updates will be provided in future.
A spokesperson for JC Decaux said the company had no comment to make regarding the cease and desist letter.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0923/1224255060614.html
There is also a website doing the same thing as the app although not as useful as an iPhone app.
I guess they haven’t received their Cease & Desist letter yet!
Love the Bikes
Hate the ProcessI would be very interested in enforcment action against those unauthorised signs. Is there a list of their locations for the average NIMBYist?
For sure the scrolling ads on the construction at Newcomen Bridge should have been removed by JC Decaux.
Instead of doing so, they had the hard neck to apply for not one, but two of those hideous Metropoles, having been refused one on the other side of the bridge following an appeal to An Bord Pleanala.
DCC in an outstanding display of cretinism, even by their own high standards, opted to allow one of the Metropoles at the Newcomen Bridge site – a decision which I have appealed to APB (result due mid-October).
I shouldn’t have to do this though.
I shouldn’t have to root out 220 euro of my money and spend my time keeping these things out of my area. ABP gave many clear reasons why these things should be refused permission in the decisions on those Metropoles that were appealed, one of them located on Newcomen Bridge and then the munchkins in DCC go and try to allow one not thirty metres away???Good for you Pascal!
http://examiner.ie/business/donohoe-intervenes-in-iphone-dispute-101663.htmlDonohoe intervenes in iPhone dispute
Thursday, September 24, 2009
PASCHAL DONOHOE, iPhone user and Seanad transport spokesman, has called on Dublin City Council to intervene in a dispute over an iPhone application that shows Dubliners where their nearest Dublin bike is located.
Senator Donohoe said that the removal of this application due to the threat of legal action “just doesn’t make sense”.
Stationstops app… New yorkshire
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0925/1224255203440.html
AN EXPERT on information technology law has said that the advertising agency JC Decaux would be unlikely to win a case against a web design firm over a free iPhone application it developed for the Dublinbikes scheme.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0925/1224255203440.html
@StephenC wrote:
All the bikes are microchipped so they can be located.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0929/breaking26.htm
Interestingly…
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0930/breaking45.htm
All’s well that ends well!
I can’t explain right now how liberating these bikes are for pedestrians. They’re just fantastic. Stephen’s Green to Parnell Square North in ten minutes. O’Connell Street to Smithfield in four minutes.Can’t be beaten. The quays are a no-go, though. Buses are incredibly dangerous to be around.
@fergalr wrote:
I can’t explain right now how liberating these bikes are for pedestrians. They’re just fantastic. Stephen’s Green to Parnell Square North in ten minutes. O’Connell Street to Smithfield in four minutes.Can’t be beaten. The quays are a no-go, though. Buses are incredibly dangerous to be around.
Agreed about the buses. Some bus drivers take care and are courteous but most appear to have a problem with cyclists. We could do better ourselves – breaking pedestrian lights when there are no pedestrians is understandable (IMO)- but why do so many feel they have to break main lights?
I make a habit of acknowledging courteous behaviour from and car drivers (common) and bus drivers (happens!) and maybe this could help change the culture if widely adopted- plus obeying the more important rules of the road?
Marvellous the the Velibs seem to be working out on the vandalism front – have to say I was a Class A sceptic – delighted to be proven wrong.
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@publicrealm wrote:
Agreed about the buses. Some bus drivers take care and are courteous but most appear to have a problem with cyclists. We could do better ourselves – breaking pedestrian lights when there are no pedestrians is understandable (IMO)- but why do so many feel they have to break main lights?
I make a habit of acknowledging courteous behaviour from and car drivers (common) and bus drivers (happens!) and maybe this could help change the culture if widely adopted- plus obeying the more important rules of the road?
Marvellous the the Velibs seem to be working out on the vandalism front – have to say I was a Class A sceptic – delighted to be proven wrong.
/
I’ve found car drivers to be courteous and very responsive to simple indicating from my wobbly bike. Buses are the problem because they weave between lanes and crowd into the pavement. Westmoreland Street is an absolute joke in that regard. Sometimes cycling beside the pavement is the absolute worst place to be in the roadway.
In a way I’m pleased but not surprised to see that the bikes have yet to be nicked en masse. The locking mechanism is pretty theft-proof. Proper and cumbersome.
Generally have no complaints about bus drivers. Rookie cyclists are a severe hindrance on the road to all, other cyclists included (undertaking, stopping short at the lights or blocking the left lane at the lights when proceeding straight ahead, braking suddenly without looking etc) so I wouldn’t be complaining. if you don’t have the confidence or experience to negotiate a slowing or turning bus in traffic then stop until it is safe to proceed. Velibs dont look like they are built for the necessary acceleration to get around or away from a manouevering Bus (which don’t forget is bigger than a HGV and as difficult to handle) anyway. Enjoy your perambulations on the velibs by all means but they are not urban thoroughbreds for fighting the good fight with the general traffic melee!
And always use hand signals and acknowledge courteous drivers as stated above.
@fergalr wrote:
Westmoreland Street is an absolute joke in that regard. Sometimes cycling beside the pavement is the absolute worst place to be in the roadway.
People who have been cycling for years will tell you that beside the footpath is the worst place to be on Westmoreland. Most cyclists use lanes 2 and 3 (left to right) for safety. D’Olier St is much the same.
Exactly. anywhere on Westmoreland or College Green//St get out in the middle of the road and command your road space. It’s not a place for novices.
Re Westmorland / D’Olier Streets and cycling, Bus Gate was part sold on the basis of being improvements to the public domain.
This has not been the case. Footpaths have been left at a miserable width, the streets have been left as multi-lane one-ways (5 lanes wide) – with the result that traffic (mostly taxis/ buses) can really speed along here – none of which is any benefit whatsoever to cyclists. No new cycle-lanes, despite the space being clearly present 😡
The primary accomplishments of Bus Gate from what I can see are that trade has been driven out of the city centre, ugly large motorway-standard has been inserted in a manner that blocks facades of the city’s best buildings while also damaging antique pavements, and Westmorland Street has been left exposed as what it has become, ie a stretch of dereliction, vacancy, and urban failure.
It couldn’t be any worse – really, you just couldn’t make it up. In my opinion the planners/ officials responsible for presiding over and implementing this mess should be released of their duties on grounds of incompetency.
There is one question in all of this, which is the more dogma-driven tokenistic supposed “green” measure – bikes provided by a firm that makes maybe €200m out of badly-planned new adverts in poor areas, or a Bus Gate that has succeed in driving trade out to the out-of-town shopping malls, making “edge city” more viable?
I note neither of these supposed “green” schemes had Environmental Impact Assessments – well done to gobshites in the Green Party who have been in government while these template examples of bad planning have been allowed to damage the city… You could get away with building a concentration camp in Ireland these days – as long as you put the word “eco” in front of it, and provide a bicycle rack for the guards.
Bus Gate should have the letter “t” added into its title, Bust Gate – as that’s the primary effect its having on the city centre.
So what do people make of the scheme and its workings so far?
On the design front, it has to be said that it’s been an outstanding success. The bikes themselves, the stands, the electronic display units, the associated marketing – all spot on. Extremely smart and well co-ordinated. Aside from the odd crude island unit with garish bollard courtesy of the Roads Department, the scheme has integrated itself remarkably well into the city. If anything, they actually improve the appearance of many host locations, with visually pleasing ranks of bicycles injecting some civility into Cathal Brugha Street, Christchurch Place and their ilk.
The on-screen interface is a little confusing for first-timers, i.e. mainly tourists, with the none-too-obvious requirement to press the green V every time to progress the registration. Otherwise a nice and simple process.
Who on earth are all these long-legged people though?! Every single bike I’ve used thus far has had to have its seat adjusted down to earthling level (promptly cutting my hand in the process today). Very odd. If there’s a single fault with the bikes, which are extremely sturdy and comfortable, it is that the seats can be a bit dodgy in the stability stakes. I can only imagine this will get worse with time…
LOL I was complaining the other day that I had to adjust the seat UP each time I was using one. I wondering who all the short arses were!
J’adore mon db!!!!!!!
Haha – well yet again, the one I got this morning was higher that Bosco’s Tounge Twisters in their final stages of elevation. And I’m not small! How on earth somebody could even reach up that high, never mind operate the yoke, is beyond me.
At least we know who to blame now 😉
I for one think the dbs are such a civilising factor in the city. All these genteel cyclists criss crossing the city. The only downside is that it has highlighted just how cycle unfriendly the city streets are, in particular the various traffic cells and one ways which may wrok well for funnelling cars about but frustrate the average db-er wanting to get from A to B. As a cyclist I should be used to this but perhaps I havent been paying enough attention.
There is a problem with a lack of cycles available at some stations. The IT picked up on this the weekend before last and reported that DCC are proposing to increase capacity at a number of stations such as Portabello and Smithfield and rolling out the bikes farther afield such as Heuston.
A great sucess!
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