The Free Lunch project

Here's how this one worked:

1. Local political figure decides he wants to get greater glory and votes, do something vastly popular, something very fast, and get it all for free.

2. So he whips up interest for a public bike project in his city and goes to one of the advertising-based suppliers or other who will deliver him the profiled service for a low price.

3. They agree to do it - since he give them everything they are asking for. (Since it's free. Right?)

4. The project gets planned and built.

5. But someone forgets to analyze and ensure that the high infrastructure specifications that are critical to system success are going to be met.

6. The detailed checklists of key points has not been scrutinized with the needed full expert attention and knowledge of international experience and lessons learned (at time painfully).

7. There is a gala opening day, everyone gets excited, the local media is there, the ribbons are cut and bingo! The system is up and working. Hurrah!

8. But the wonderful new service does not offer the necessary high-grain area-wide coverage, stations and collection points are poorly placed, so the whole thing is vastly underutilized. Instead of 1-12 riders/ay, they are getting less than half that.

9. The bike redistribution system is not working properly, so many potential users after a certain number of frustrating episodes simply stop relying on it for daily use.

10. "Maintenance is all" Everybody knows that but somehow it's not being delivered in the free lunch project.

11. The anticipated income from subscriptions is not coming in. (And we know who will foot that bill.)

12. Maintenance was vastly under budgeted and is neglected.

13. Theft, vandalism, accidents, inadequate enforcement,

14. The project slowly grinds to a halt, with only vestiges maintained.

15. The local hero who started it all has been elected to another (distant) office and is not around to take the blame.

16. And so it goes.

But there are plenty of other ways to mess up as well. These projects may look simple but that's just not the case. It's like walking a tight rope: there are a lot of steps that you could take but only one of them is the right one.

This is a true story by the way. And it's not the only one.

How do you make sure this does not happen in your city? Stay tuned.

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