Message to Melbourne from Dublin Bikes.mov

Visit my bike art web site. http://situp-bike-art.com.

Melbourne Bike Share is in trouble. Everyone knows that. But what to do?
I think we should get Andrew to visit, both the cities which already have bike share, and those who are thinking about it.

I'm ready to put $100 towards his visit. How about you?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Dublin Bikes
• Dublin
• Bike share
• Melbourne Bike Share
• compulsory helmets
• Andrew Montague
• Mike Rubbo
• Violeta Brana-Lafourcade
• city bikes
• urban cycling
• sit-up bikes
• bike safety
• curbing obesity
• cycling for health

[TheObimara]

I agree that the helmet requirement is the no. 1 reason why Melbourne is not working. However, as I understand it Dublin and Melbourne are supported by different financial schemes: In Dublin it's a trade of adverts for bikes supplemented by those slightly low user fees, whereas in Melbourne the base funding comes from the state and other govt. bodies. I would assume that this is the main reason the Melbourne system is pricer.

[MikeRubbo]

@TheObimara Seems like their funding scheme is a good deal to me. Dublin gets to keep all the membership fees and the extra ride fees, a tidy sum.

A friend calculated that the Melb. system was costing the taxpayer approx $85 every time someone borrowed a bike. Even if its a lot less, big subsidies are not sustainable, nor is the helmet subsidy, one would think.

[MikeRubbo]

@TheObimara You may be right. Does anyone know? The J.C. Decaux system was presumably open for Melb to adopt. . I wonder why they did not go that way and save themselves 5 million? It cant be because Decaux saw disaster coming, courtesy of our helmet laws because they are behind the Brisbane scheme under the same helmet regime.

[choccyboyau]

@TheObimara It becomes door to door when there is a bike station, even a small one with 10 or 20 bikes, within about 100M of your destination. See plenty of examples of this around the world. Coincidentally (?) these successful schemes of door to door bikes are in places without mandatory helmet laws.

[ozmawars]

Get this man to visit Melbourne and Brisbane (and Canberra)! Maybe he can "knock" some sense into the heads of our pollies.

Brisbane is already considering axing it's scheme (Use the following Google search to find the article: "herald sun brisbane citycyle under review").

[andrew097]

The JC Decaux company were given Ad sites around the city to sell the city got bikes . Its thought here that they got a good deal. The Bikes have being a stunning success and any people I have talked to love it . Dublin is nice to cycle around . I have being in Melbourn and I,m sure with your weather it would be wonderfu to cycle. But the bikes must be upright.

[gcgeez]

And, Mike, another brilliant doco from you. Thanks so much for your efforts to improve the lot of cyclists. It will be interesting to see if a change of state government in Victoria last weekend will have any impact on the scheme. Sometimes supposedly conservative governments surprise -- there is such a thing as a green Tory these days (think Boris). There are some of us who still think that a reversal of the helmet laws can still happen.

[gcgeez]

Clearchannel operate similar schemes to J C Decaux (eg Barcelona's Bicing). Several years ago as an ex-Melburnian living in Barcelona, I wrote to Victorian politicians telling them how good the scheme was and to start public bike hire for Melbourne pronto. How they decided to manage it, and the much higher direct cost to government than larger existing schemes is disappointing. Perhaps poor decision-making in Melbourne relates to lack of a greater council? Brisbane has one, Melbourne's a mess.

[TheObimara]

@MikeRubbo : Perhaps Melb was not interested in ads-for-bikes scheme? I dislike that as much as a helmet requirement, and as much as the way a bike station is a door in "door-to-door" even if its several hundred metres from a final destination. (By the way see "openbike.se" to find out more...)

[VioletaLafourcade]

Great video Mike...nice camerawork too ;)

Hope people in Melbourne get the message and get on those bikes!

[TheObimara]

@MikeRubbo - No other public transport system is financed this way (aside from other JCDecaux etc. schemes), with so much of capital and running costs coming from - as I said - higher prices on consumer products.

I like that guy you interviewed and the spirit shown in the piece, but you are leaning towards making this a single-issue (about helmets, and I agree with you there!), i.e. not showing solidarity with those who view public ads as pollution (and often offensive in other ways).