Whenever
I see an adult on a bicycle, I have hope for the human
race.
~ H. G. Wells
Based on the body of materials and
leads brought together over the last year in the World City Bike Collaborative
website at http://www.worldcitybike.org, and the information that appears
there on the members and qualification of the WCB Task Force, the
Internship Program works like this:
1. A
three-way partnership between the host city, the intern, and the World
City Bike Collaborative.
2. The goal is to put the combined
experience and resources of the Collaborative at the service of cities
considering the creation of public bicycle projects , working in a short period
of time and at low cost in order to prepare a well thought-out, authoritative
platform for decision in moving ahead on the topic.
3. Each intern prepares a draft work
statement drawing on their own
experience and collaboration with WCB program, which is internally reviewed and
fine-tuned by the collaborating members of the Task Force, so as to provide a
preliminary outline for discussion with the host city.
4. The host city names an appropriate
high level liaison to coordinate the program from their end. And in parallel
provides the WCB team with an initial set of background information to provide
an informed context for this first phase of the work program.
5. From this end two members of the Task Force are named to
ensure support for the duration of the project. Language competence and
knowledge of the operating environment need to be taken into account. One of
them will serve as project director.
6. The candidate’s initial work
statement is then revised and extend to take into account the specifics furnished
by the host city, and then subjected to three-way review and discussion in
order to provide a solid basis for the two-month work program.
7. The project is then engaged and
executed as per this work plan, with biweekly presentations by the intern to the
host city team, enhanced and supported
through a continual flow of
dialogue, questions, and materials between the intern and the members of the
WorldCityBike task force assigned to the project.
8. A complete working draft of the final
report to be submitted to the city and to the task force one week prior to
completion of the assignment, giving all three partners that last week for the
necessary fine-tuning.
- Full participation and support by
host city
- Full time of intern during two
months, with collaborative prep before landing and starting work
- Effective daily interaction with Task
Force and acceptance of responsibility for report quality
- Local outreach program –
networking (For example.)
-
Initial
“crash course” on how PBS work for all interested groups in city
-
Benchmarking
city/project – first level screen for appropriate responses (For example.)
- Supplier contacts and first stage
dialogue (For example)
- Additional outreach (Other cities,
international programs, etc.)
- Report and recommendations to the
city.
It’s 2008 and the news has got out.
Cities around the world are showing interest in the possibility of creating
their own shared public bicycle networks.
After the high profile successes of a
growing number of projects since 2005 (Lyon, Paris, Barcelona, etc.), there is
a feeling in the air that high profile, high performing shared public bike
systems can be developed cheaply, even possibly at no cost, and in a relatively
short period of time (less than two years, cradle to running). And while there
is a fair amount of truth in these claims, the actual complexity of getting the
projects right is in fact quite daunting, and requires real expertise, and a
strong strategy, to make this happen as it should.
As of this date we are seeing a certain
number of projects forming up or coming online that are missing the mark in a
number of ways. This does not need to be the case. The World City Bike
Collaborative, its high level
International Task Force, and the Internship Program have been developed
to provide help to ensure that these known mistakes are not needlessly
repeated.
Similarly we are witnessing a pattern
whereby a given city, once bitten by this interest, then sets out earnestly to
rediscover the wheel. They then initiate
an extensive research program which, since we have seen a number of them,
invariably pretty much repeat the groundwork that is already well known, and
much of which can be had on the WCB website immediately and for nothing. The reports coming out of these exercises resemble
each other, other than in the signature line.
Likewise there is an inevitable
tendency to want to travel to Mecca to see these things for themselves. The only problem there is that this is very
costly and once again that with just a few days in each place they risk to do
little more than rediscover known truths.
The entire WCB program has been
created to streamline this learning process, and cut the time and public funds
needed to prepare a well thought-out program for your city. Once you have your
planning frame right you are going to have plenty to do to make your project
succeed. So better save those resources
in this first exploratory phase so as to be able to put them to work where they
will do the most good – the detailed
implementation plan, RFP, screening and selection, and then the
implantation and management process that follows.
The collaborative project team have two months to move the host city in their thinking from a general interest in knowing more about what it would take to make a public cycle project work in their city, to an informed first stage program with defined benchmarks for decision-making for next steps.[1]
The final product at the end of these
first two months is not going to be a detailed implementation plan, nor
detailed technical outline for an RFP. But rather an informed strategic
overview and a, let’s call it, “pre-RFP guide and checklist” showing the way
for these next important steps. It is based on a strategic review and
collaboration with the full range of local, regional and international
partners.
A fundamental task will be the
creation of an outreach network which identifies and invites participation of
the widest range of concerned local and regional organizations and interests.
This critical task reflects the importance of local understanding and support
of what will be needed to make this project succeed fully. A high quality city bike project cannot
simply be overlaid by a competent supplier on an otherwise passive city – it is above all a
city-led initiative requiring deep,
many-sided commitment to success.
The first job of the intern is thus
to identify all the key players in the city and its region that need to be
contacted, learned from, and brought into the information and discussion
network. This will include:
- The city sponsor
- The key city agencies (including
police)
- Transporters – all of them, with PT
on the top line
- Bike and transport user groups
(including walking)
- Environmental groups, local
consultants, researchers, etc.[2]
The second key outreach building
block is to interact creatively with the main suppliers, a list which includes
not only firms capable of supplying full systems (see
http://suppliers.worldcitybike.org ) but also firms and groups qualified to
provide supporting equipment and services, including local groups to the extent
possible. It is not the task of this
phase to provide detailed guidelines for eventual suppliers for your project,
but rather to open up discussions and bring on board their extensive hands-on expertise in what it takes
to make these projects work.
The third key outreach task: Creating active working links and sharing
with other cities
This is not a project about bicycles per se, but rather a key element of the New Mobility Agenda program Reinventing Transport in Cities (see http://invent.newmobility.org). What is in our view most important about these projects is that by their very nature they literally force a major rethinking of the transportation arrangements of the city and highlight short-comings and reform possibilities.
The working papers in this series are being prepared to provide support on practical
issues and specific implementation challenges for our subscribing cities and
groups, They present in concise format some of the significant findings and
recommendations that are coming out over the course of the work of our task
force team, both through our on-going focused research in specific technical
and policy matters, and as a result of active advisory and support work in
specific city projects and associated programs.
The following listing is as per 24 July 2008. (Hot links to follow)
WP
1. Introduction and list of Working
Papers
WP
2. List of cities (Links? Also
integrate into Cities pages on site)
WP
3. Should Vancouver require helmets
for planned new city bike system
WP
4. Outreach Strategies
WP
5. A truly bad city bike project
WP
6. City bikes and the autumn of old
mobility
WP
7. Bicycle: A thing so slight
WP
8. Price –Independent perspectives on
Vélib’ (also show photo links)
WP 9. Benefits Analysis for the Sovereign City of
“Not-Vancouver”
WP
10.
Benefits-qualitative
WP
11.
Benefits-cars (where to put calculator?)
WP
12.
Phylogenetic table
WP
13.
Vandalism/Social aspects and strategies
WP
14.
Benchmarking
WP
15.
Accelerated Learning
WP
16.
What you learn about bikes in cities, when you look at citybikes
WP
17.
WCB City Internship Program – working notes for foundation
Other supporting papers and publications:
- World City Bike Revolution
- Price tags article
- Gordon Price pictures of
Paris/Vélib’ -
[1] Or perhaps alternatively the team will decide not exactly a PBS but something else to move zero-carbon transport up a notch or two in that place’s mobility spectrum. There are of course lots of places on this planet that are not ready for city bikes as we understand them, but there is still a lot that can be done to advance the new mobility agenda there.)
[2] Click to http://ecoplan.org/briefs/general/local-actors.htm for more on this.