This program was organized in order to stimulate, accelerate and support well-made city car projects around the world. The main clients to whom the program is addressed are the cities that need to make informed decisions about whether and what kind of project to plan and bring on line at best corresponds to the unique characteristics of their city.

But they are in not the only groups to whom the expertise and perspective available under this program can be useful. There are a range of regional, national and even international programs and groupings that have a role to play, if they can figure it out, in order to help bring these systems on line in ways which are going to do the most good. And then too there are the main supplier groups, including those already geared up to provide total systems solutions for their city clients, and for others seeking their way or who have a role to play in some specific area of their expertise and competence.

The WCB Cities Advisory Program

The city advisory program has been established to provide a convenient package of services which can be set in motion quickly and at an affordable price over the course of the first year of investigation, planning and implementation.

Making your city bike project work and reach its full potential is not only a technical and economic challenge. It is also one of politics, negotiations, communications and outreach. And here is where a bit of international experience and collaboration may come in handy.

The WCB Task Force brings together, as you can see here, a group of talented individuals from different countries and with different if complementary backgrounds who are firmly committed to the challenge of sustainable transport and sustainable cities are prepared to help you with your project. They can be brought in to support 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).

Here to get the ball rolling and make this more concrete are three kinds of support arrangements which may help open up this matter for future discussion. Briefly . . .

Benchmarking -- Team audits of problems, plans and on-going projects . Can be particularly useful at the most critical stages of your project: (i) the 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 after the project is well underway. (Click here for more.)

Accelerated Learning Sessions -- offer focused interactive two-way presentations and dialogues, organized over one or several days in a host city. Think of it as a kind of "Master Class" moderated in a collegial fashion by associates of the World City Bike team, actively supported by local sponsors, and bringing together participants with a broad range of interests and competence in the areas that need to be covered to make such project succeed. Sessions are co-organized as appropriate with specific city sponsors, suppliers or national or international interested to lend a hand to encourage and support innovation in cities. (Click here for more.)

Start-up support: -- One practical way to bring the expertise and counsel of the team in an affordable manner, is to start with a fixed retainer contract (covering the preparation phase, a one or two-day workshop, a parallel local outreach project, along with a preliminary list of specified tasks and targets to be queried for next stage follow-up). Then meet to run the workshop and the associated outreach program and interviews (organized in close cooperation with the sponsor and possibly following some of the ideas set out in the Accelerated Learning Sessions introduced here). And then, follow up with specific tasks based on a task list as outcome of the workshop.

The idea is always to keep it simple and according to milestones attached to a proper phase list where the decision makers can always decide on: Go / NoGo

This indeed is the goal of this important preparatory step, namely to make sure that The key issues are targeted and clarified so that such an informed decision to go-ahead, or not, can be made. in addition, this first step should already permit the organizers to come to a first round of decisions concerning a number of the broader strategic issues and choices that their project is going to bring up.

It will be important in these early stages to keep the considerations at this broader strategic level, and not to spend too much time delving prematurely into the many fascinating areas of detail, which in time will become critical for the success of the project. Strategy first, planning and detail follows.

If you click here you will be taken to a first listing of some of the most fundamental considerations to be considered in wait at the outset is intended to give an idea of some of the things that need to be looked at and decided about in these early stages of a project and decision preparation. And by clicking here you will be taken to a sort of mega-listing which is intended to serve as a reminder of the very broad range of groups and interests which constitute the broad backdrop for transportation reform in just about all cities in the world. A strong city bike project will succeed only where there is strong outreach. Top-down planning will not get you very far, as you will surely see if that it's the path you eventually chose to follow.

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Working with suppliers:

Suppliers have an entirely different set of needs. And it is our goal in this program to see if we can perform a useful intermediary role between them and the cities, which might be thought of as a sort of coaching on both sides. We bring to the cities the lessons of international experience both in terms of city bike projects per se, and more broadly in terms of the kinds of transportation reform and rebuilding projects which constitutes the New Mobility Agenda. This can help them in their relations with the cities. Our works with suppliers can also serve a similar moderating "friend of the court" function.

There is a certain tendency on the part of most cities as eventual paying (in some way) clients either to enter into a relationship of dependence or alternatively into an adversarial relationship. The first is easy to understand if we bear in mind that for most cities this will be the first time around on a project like this. On the other hand the supplier, or at least those who are well-established, tends to have considerable experience in this field and are fully familiar with all of the details which make at least their project work as they think best. In other cases it can be seen that the local sponsors of a future project may tend to look with some suspicion on the supplier, for whatever reasons.

Neither of these are the best way to get a strong project up and running, since creative collaboration is the name of the game. And while both are understandable, it is our experience that sometimes the presence of a neutral third party with some understanding of the issues and different points of view and conerns can help create the kind of collegial relationships and attitudes that are needed for a collaborative project of this sort.

Another situation that can come up and where we may be able to lend a hand is the case of cities that may have already built up the first stages of a city bike system, but which made for one reason or another may have gotten a bit stuck. In these cases often a telling indicator that there is a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed is a very simple one: the number of trips per bike per day, week or month. If that number is low, say less than three bike trips per day on average for a project whose initial intentions were two or three times that, then the time has surely come to take a closer look. Again, the availability of an informed neutral force to guide and moderate discussions and help move to eventual remedial actions can be useful, not least because it is times like this in which relationships can become more adversarial than creative.

Then too, some suppliers find it useful to listen to a third party spell out problems, preferences, and eventual solution paths for their own products and service packages, based not just in terms of experience in the use of a single city but rather reflecting our mutual knowledge of what has been learned in many different projects of different sorts in different places with different actors involved.

For the major suppliers in the field, we recommend that a practical first step is for them simply to sign on for the basic low cost package of services for 2008, and then as opportunities and occasions arise build on that with more specific services and arrangements.

Is your city going to be a good place to create a public bike project?

Here are some of the basic indicators and conditions that need to be explicitly considered, thrashed out and decided for your city, and looked at together with the participants in the main sessions.

1. Is this to be a full scale city-wide daily mobility system? Or a pilot, test or tourist project?
   • It makes a big difference. Above all in the level of commitment on the part of the city and the key actors.

2. Is your city government 100% behind project? (e.g., are all the key players willing to commit fully to all aspects of the project)
   • e.g., Are they ready to commit to necessary infrastructure expansion to support?
   • This needs to be iron-hard verified at the very early stages of your eventual project. If all the key players have not bought in . . .

3. Is the necessary supporting infrastructure in place? (and if not are you ready to do what is needed to put it in place?)
   • Kms of safe cycling access are a good indicator
   • Safe cycle parking (These two modes , public and private, work together)
   • And is city ready to extend its cycling infrastructure as needed?

4. What about your weather?
   • Cyclable months/year: (for average person)
   • Are you willing to consider a winter of seasonal shut-down if your weather demands it?

5. Topography?
   • % city area easily cyclable: (Rough estimate will do)

6. Size/Urban form/Activity mix?
   • Do you have a sufficiently sized area and the activity density (mixed use) needed to take advantage of these short trips?

7. Road condition/maintenance?
   • Cyclists need good road surfaces to cycle safely

8. Vandalism/bike thefts, public attitudes to public facilities?
   • These bikes and stations are out on the street 24/7

9. Extent, density and quality of public transit system coverage:
   • Public cycles are a form of public transport - they work in synergy with the rest. And is that rest there in your city?

10. Cycle clubs, environmental, user and support groups:
    • These are the knowledgeable allies who will be needed for success.

11. Driver attitudes and skill levels?
    • Bringing a system online will require the re-education of all those who today share the road. This process involves many actors and steps.

12. Degree of city's commitment to sustainable development?
    • If it's not there 100% and in blood, your project has little chance for real success. You have to be very very sure, otherwise give it a miss.

Once you have a feel for how the above look in your city, you should already have a pretty good idea as to whether it will be worth pursuing this idea. Or not. That will be a good start. But now the real work begins.

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