act 6 scene 1

Some time ago Mr Gareth invited myself and a bunch of others along for a weekend in France - Paris to be specific.  I hadn’t confirmed or bought tickets for a couple of reasons: firstly there had been a theory that I would be working in Paris by now (but this has not come to fruition) and secondly I instead have full time work in the UK capital again (working in the iconic building lovingly known as the Gherkin) and have been doing weekend work of late.

By Thursday last week I had secured the weekend off, retrieved my passport from its important India visa application process at work and booked some expensive last minute eurostar tickets going straight from work and doing the international commute on Monday morning.  Here begins my first real trip to Paris.

Mr G. has a cousin who owns a flat in Paris - in a stunning location just next to the Eiffel Tower.  It made a most perfect base for the cycling, walking, eating, drinking, debating and laughing that ensued for the 60 hours of our city break.  So let me tell you about one little aspect that contributed significantly to my falling in love with the city.  It wasn’t the parks, the Notre Dame, walking along the Seine, climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower, picnicing in the parks nor having the most incredible steaks and crème brûlée (although all of these played their part).  Instead it was the joy of discovering the Parisien solution to rental bikes: vélib’.

All of us used this on the Saturday of our trip to cycle around the city, picking up and dropping off cycles freely at the hundreds of automated bicycle racks.  It works because it is super cheap, easily accessible, intuitive and relatively well maintained.  Each bike rack has a series of posts, each with space for a bike to be attached, and a terminal from which you can buy subscriptions and unlock bikes.  Using the terminal you can also get live information about the availability of bikes and free posts (needed to drop bikes off) for other sites around the city.  The Parisiens even seem to have incorporated their own customs into the process (like turning the saddle the wrong way round to warn of bikes that are not working properly).  It does of course have it’s problems - mainly that the ebb and flow of bicycle travel leaves a lack of bikes or free posts in different areas according to whether the location is in suburbia or near tourist attractions.  However it is exceedingly well implemented and I’m all for seeing it introduced to London….

… however I have my concerns with regards to getting a successful implementation running in the UK.  I’m relatively sure that the venture does not make a profit and may even make a small loss.  Whilst subsidised socially beneficially schemes are valued in France over here in the UK everything must be profitable in itself and with this pressure in mind one can see a series of events occuring.

Firstly, the initial introduction would likely start by being very small, possibly too small to gain a critical mass of users.  In France they started with some 750 stations, increasing to well over 1000.  Secondly, the cost would probably be higher than the €1/day basic rate (cheaper for more than one day, more details on the wiki page above) which is so low that almost everyone can afford it.  Thirdly, maintenance is key to keeping the system at a good level of operation.  Finally I can see mindless vandalism contributing to the maintenance overhead in a more significant way than in Paris.

If these are not managed properly then any initial rollout could easily be labelled as a failure and abolished with claims that ‘it simply doesn’t work in the UK’ - particularly if Ken loses the mayoral elections (my opinion is that he is the only one of the candidates that would be able to, and want to, make a success of this).

Only time will tell, but I’ll be a happy Londoner if the streets around me are full of freedom bicycles very soon.