. . . support to teams charged with
screening and preparing your city bike projects.
As you enter the World City Bike
program site the left menu item, Learning Curve, will take you to
an extensive library of documentation, contacts and leads carefully
assembled by the Task Force
for your free use. Our goal from the beginning of this open collaborative
project has been to do what we can to encourage and support projects and
start-ups in cities all over the world. The site thus aims to assist planners,
researchers, public interest groups and policy makers, putting in their hands a
rich array of carefully selected and organized background materials and
references in support of their project idea.
With this first round of information
in hand you are well on the way to moving up your learning curve for deciding
about and then initiating the planning of your first class, world-level city
bike system.
Ø Right click here for details
The second level of assistance is
provided by the report, “World City Bike Implementation Strategies”. This 130
page policy brief has been prepared to advise
considering cities, public authorities and agencies around the world as to how
best to go about screening, planning and implementing a city/public bike system
of their own. As our team has had
the occasion to work with and observe projects being planned and implemented in
a number of cities in different countries and a wide variety of operating
contexts, the creation of this report provided us with an opportunity to bring
together in one place all the lessons learned
in the process. (It is updated for subscribers at regular intervals.)
This report has been prepared to save
you both time and money, thus permitting you to concentrate your energies and
resources on the already difficult-enough challenges that need to be faced if
you are to come up with a strong plan for the best possible, most appropriate
city/bike system for your city.
While it is important to have that
initial free database and then the policy report and its guidelines in hand,
the task of laying the base for a properly prepared city bike initiative is a
demanding process that requires deep knowledge and competences in what is
essentially an uncharted new public policy area -- and one in which we are
well-positioned to help you save considerable time and money. The eight part WCB
subscription and support package covers the following for the full year.
1. Report: World City Bike Implementation Strategies
(latest version)
2. Updates: Regular updates of report over
year.
3. Hotline Support: Hotline support or direct
consultation for subscribers.
4. Debriefs/News: Private
communications of exception news, updates, and information from projects,
cities and suppliers around the world.
5. World
City Bike Forum: Access to
this outstanding resource and its database and discussions. Available on
invitation only.
6. Working Papers Access to this internal resource,
with working papers being prepared and distributed on the average of twice per
month. (Click here
for sample Working Paper)
7. Benchmarking: Team audits of your plans and
on-going projects. (See below for details).
8. Accelerated Learning: Invitations
to organize and participate in expert workshops.
This broad base of information,
materials and insight is based on hands-on work with leading projects around
the world, reinforced by ongoing study and collaboration with implementing cities, leading supplying sources and other
expert groups world-wide.
Making your city bike project reach
its full potential is not only a test of technical and economic competence, but
it is also – and this is more demanding yet – a challenge of politics,
communications and outreach. And here is where a bit of international
experience may prove useful, to avoid repeating the many costly errors that
earlier projects have encountered and which we have now carefully flagged.
The best way for us to communicate
efficiently as to how our team can be of help will be for you to send an first
email or simply pick up the phone and initiate an informal dialogue, best of
course if you have first had that good look at the program site at http://www.worldcitybike.org.
It may help if you take a bit of time to get to know us better, starting
with the four useful components that follow.
World City Bike Task Force -- The Task Force brings together a group of
talented individuals from different countries and with different and
complementary backgrounds who are firmly committed to the challenge of
sustainable transport and sustainable cities are prepared to help you with your
project, either as individual experts or as a team to be specially organized in
terms of your requirements (including language competence as well as specific
areas of expertise).
Benchmarking -- Team
audits of problems, plans and on-going projects . Can be particularly
useful at the most critical stages of your project: (i) those early
phases when you are making initial decisions as to whether or not this approach
might well suited to your city; (ii) once you have prepared your strategic
planning document and begin preparing your call for tenders, (iii) when it
comes to evaluating the tenders and other details of your project
implementation plan; and finally (iv) as an independent mid-course look-in and
advisory after the project is underway.
Accelerated
Learning Sessions offer focused interactive presentations and dialogues, organized
over one or several days in a host city.
Very useful and both time and cost effective, especially at the front
end of your project. Basically a kind of "Master Class" moderated by
our Task Force, actively supported by local sponsors, and bringing together
participants from across the city with a broad range of interests and
competence in the areas that need to be covered to make your project succeed.
Sessions are co-organized as appropriate with city sponsors, suppliers or
national agencies ready to lend a hand to encourage and support innovation in
cities.
WCB City Internship Program: This cost-effective program keys on
inbedding a young WCB associate in your city for a period of 6-8 weeks, to
prepare a first round of action recommendations for the concerned public
agencies. All interns have experience with similar projects, and over their
weeks in your city work hand in hand with assigned Task Force members to ensure
the high quality of the process, the report and counsel to the city. Hosts are asked to commit on their end to
ensure full support and city-wide access to the intern for the duration of the
assignment. A final report will be issued by the Task Force with detailed
recommendations for next steps and follow-up.
* * *
These areas of support are among
those that cities are finding most useful. However, we can also help you in
other ways, whether you are still just considering a project or are already
deep into one. Feel free to contact us to discuss how we can help or for more
information. Contact info: Eric Britton (direct line) + 33 1 4326 1323 or click
here to visit our contact page.
Together let's make your city a better place for you and your children to live
and get around in! We have to make our
future, not sit around and wait it to happen to us.