The "Velib" Saga Continues

So, just as these environment-friendly, state-sponsored bicycles were becoming popular around various cities in France and elsewhere--"Boom"-- they run into France's newly flourishing private-sector capitalism.


[Thanks to Guy Brighton for this photo.]

To bring the uninformed up to date, last year the City of Paris, like several other communities around Europe and elsewhere, decided to make a deal with a French publicist named J.C. Decaux, to place hundreds of bicycle stations around the city and to make available thousands of bicycles for hourly or daily use by the citizens. For more details, see this post, that has links to the whole history.

J.C. Decaux is a powerful man in the world, inasmuch as he controls many of those billboards, subway stations and publicity stalls you see around Paris and many other cities. In the US, his rival is Clear Channel, the name you've probably seen on many of our own signs.

According to an interview with him, he loves biking and just wants to see everyone get a little exercise. The truth, however, is that he has a huge financial interest in getting monopoly access to thousands of City-paid publicity spaces, a privilege only he will enjoy in the City of Lights.

Along comes Clear Channel (CC), that has been making some exploratory inroads into French media and other venues. J.C.'s success--in obtaining at the city of Paris's expense prime space for publicity signage--did not go unnoticed to CC.

As soon as the Parisian project started to gird its loins for the second phase, i.e. for the extension of the idea into Paris's suburbs, CC found a way to intervene by persuading an administrative judge to stop it in its tracks.

I applaud this endeavor, if only because this is a first in history. No one, as far as I know, has ever challenged a state or city's right to offer services to its citizens, especially in France. But the cronyism is so blatant here, the opportunity for profit so obvious, and the opposition so strong, that even a powerful French municipality will have to put up a good fight.

The motive given for the judgment: The extension of the Parisian plan to other communities is of such a nature as to "modify the intent of the initial contract" inasmuch as "it would have the effect of furnishing a public service through a self-service mechanism." [Note: This is my approximate but unclear translation that made need some tweaking.]

As explained in this article and this one at the La Liberation French newspaper, "the initial contract drawn up between JC Decaux and the City of Paris cannot be extended without contravening principles of open competition."

In the December 19 agreement reached between the City of Paris and the outlying municipalities, Paris would have paid for the installation of the new Velib stations in the suburbs, and in exchange they would have received 100 percent of the income.

Further complicating all of this is a desire in the heart of some Parisian politicians to develop a kind of Uber-Paris community in which they, presumably, would become the power-players.

Now it is up to the State Council to decide. This should be fun.

PS: What, you ask, is the State Council? It's an unusual, archaic-sounding government tool unknown in the US, that the French have conserved over the centuries. It has an advisory capacity, an honorary status, and both an administrative function and a judicial function. For more information, see this Wikipedia entry.

Velib: The Story Continues (or at least it limps forward....)

This story at the French newspaper Liberation brings us up to date on the Velib, that ingenious idea of public transport that has taken hold of Paris, Lyon and other cities of France. Rumor has it that even Chicago is interested.

At first, everything was beautiful in the best of worlds. People lined up for subscriptions to this inexpensive and innovative way of getting around the city without having to find a parking space for a car and without polluting, except for one's own CO2.

See the story behind the Velib in chronological order, at:

- This post
- This post
- This post
- This post
- This post

Just last week, I heard about the first death, a woman who was clipped as she turned a corner and didn't survive the squeeze with a large truck.

Now, we get this Liberation story:

"Never content, those Parisians? Defective Velibs, overloaded parking stations, problems by the dozen... The grey bicycle is still popular, but the discordant notes are beginning to irritate. There's some serious grumping going on at the Velib parking stations.... This one looks full... but in fact, it's empty. Typical scenario, although subject to multiple variations: you take a bike from its stand and at the first push on the pedal you realize that the chain has been torn off. You wait a few moments for the system to recognize that you've replaced the bike in its stand, all the while massaging your tibia bruised by the brutal snapping back of the pedal. Next try, the first few yards all goes well, but on the first straightaway another failure, you discover that the wheel is bent. Or maybe it's the gear shift that is broken. Or the tire flat, the headlight busted, the brakes worn out... Discouraged, you push your bike back to the station, hook it back up, turn the saddle backwards to signal the problem according to the unwritten rule, and then, nonplused, you turn to your old standby, the subway...."


[Thanks to liberation.fr and DR for this photo.]

Now, only a few months after Velib's heralded debut, there are enough gripers to have their own website.

Paris's City Hall and Monsieur Decaux, the partners in this venture, have hired 200 technicians to repair all the little problems. In Lyon, 10% of the bikes are put out of service each year. In spite of this, there are 130,000 subscribers and 6.7 million users in Paris alone.

This story isn't over yet.

More on the Velib Story

The plot thickens. I originally reported on this new idea--what I thought was a French one--for reducing congestion and pollution in larger cities. It's called "Velib." This is the first post, and this the second.

It's basically the introduction of a new mass transportation system in Paris, whereby you can rent a municipal bicycle for a euro or two, take it pretty much anywhere, and leave it at another bike stop.

Now I learn here that this idea was actually developed by Clear Channel, a company based in Texas, back in 1998. They started it in Rennes, France. Then they went into Norway and Sweden. Then Dijon, France. And most recently Barcelona, where's it's called "Bicing".


[Thanks to bicing.com for the photo.]

And what's next? Washington, D.C.

Monsieur Decaux, their French competitor, has now gotten "Velib" into Paris, Luxembourg, Vienna (Austria), Cordoba, Gijon and Sevilla (Spain), Brussels (Belgium), Lyon , Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, Mulhouse, Roen, Besançon, and Toulouse (France). He is now claiming to be Number One. He had said in a video I watched that it was his original idea. Now I see there is debate about that.

Clearly, this has become a race to see who can capitalize first on metropolitan visibility. (Both companies are into mass marketing.) With the participation of the municipal governments of each city, there's no way these projects can fail; however, they can become subject to government mismanagement and disappear, just the way they came.

I hope not. Their private-sector partners will probably see to it that things are done in an orderly fashion, at least as far as the bike services go. They will eventually end up with a monopoly of all of the prime-location signage on the bike service stations, just as they now hold all the signs in the subways, bus stops and other municipal spots all around the world. We know they'll take care of that aspect of it, which is, after all, where they'll make their money.

Although I love the idea (who wouldn't like cleaner cities and a little exercise at the same time?), I can't rid myself of an uneasy feeling that two giants are maneuvering themselves into the city-government bird's seat here, with our blessings through our elected state officials. We'll all win, I guess; but some more than others. The big payers will not be the bike riders; it'll be the city dwellers. This is what always happens when you have collusion between the state and a private cohort. (Think cable TV companies, hard-line phone service companies, water and power companies, public works companies. In California, you can add earthquake insurance companies, gas companies, electricity providers, and what am I forgetting?)

Stay tuned for the next update.

The Story Behind The Velib - French Mass-Transit Bicycle

So here is the larger story.

This is only a semi-free-market enterprise story, given the two partners in this affair. On the one hand, you've got the Mayor of Paris, and on the other, you have the guy who owns the company that places most of those ads all over most of the airports, buses, subways, and cities of the world, Jean-Claude Decaux. (He also invented that ubiquitous street toilet you've begun to see around metropolises.)


[Thanks to jcdecaux.com for the image.]

Here I was, thinking that some little guy had come up with this brilliant idea of renting bikes for one-way trips, gathering up investors, finding commercial space, signing leases, when in reality it is a top down, politically correct, probably money losing venture by two billionaires (albeit one rich only by proxy through the taxpayers). Decaux provided the idea, and the Mayor of Paris provided the parking spaces for free.

There is some debate about what the deal is, i.e. who gets the subscription and rental money, who pays whom what. I will watch this monopoly to see if it works over the long haul. Why not, I suppose, when you've got your points of sale rent-free? (Or paid by the taxpayers, whichever way you prefer to see it.)

The French Rediscover the Bicycle

I believe it was the French who discovered the original bicycle, and now it's back--and I'm not talking about the Tour de France. I'm talking about Velib.

Almost as if to reprimand myself for joking about the French free market system, I ran into this video (in French) about how the Parisiens are now turning to the bicycle as a means of transport.


[Thanks to Soriano at Le Figaro for the photo.]

This is an exceptionally good idea with a twist, as this article confirms, citing the 1.5 million rentals in one month. The unusual thing about Velib's bike rental system is that it allows you to take a ride one way, and leave your "vehicle" at your destination. And there are 750 stations all around the Parisian capital. That number is soon to be doubled. It works on a variable fee system just like the public transport.

Oh, there are the usual sticks-in-the-mud, e.g. the taxi drivers who don't appreciate the bikers' driving techniques (or perhaps the suspicion that the system crimps on their customer base), or the bus drivers who don't get no respect for their impressive size, or your run-of-the-mill sticklers who don't appreciate a biker on the sidewalk or the crosswalk or even someone pushing his bike the wrong way on a one-way street.

Otherwise, this seems an excellent enterprise, one that we should copy in all of our larger metropolises.

I wonder how long the French government will let this continue, given that it impinges on their own revenue and they're already pretty deeply in the red.