Below is a great video and some candid remarks from Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt on bike share and the challenges it faces in Fremantle and Australia. Well worth watching.
Video was created by Mike Rubbo when he was in Perth a few weeks ago. You can see more of his videos and posts about cycling in Australia on his website www.situp-cycle.com
Although this video is titled message to Melbourne it is definatly something we need to look at closely. The video is an interview with Andrew Montague who had a lot to do with setting up Dublin’s bike share scheme, Dublin Bikes.
The numbers of riders are the shocking part, great for Dublin but really make you think about our helmet laws and how they are stifling cycling as a every day form of transport in Australia.
The Fremantle Mayor – Brad Pettitt has just been in Paris and had a chance to use the bike share there. He made a significant post about it on his Blog of which there is an excerpt below.
Returning to see how it has transformed the French capital has been a true highlight of my visit this time. Not only is there a bike station with up to 20 bikes on every second street corner of the capital but the system is accessible and easy to use for residents and visitors alike. It costs a Euro a day to join and then it is free to use so long as you only use the bike for 30 minutes or less. As a result Velib riders are everywhere.
Providing the free bikes though is only part of the reason for its success. Just as important is the investment in 100s (371km from memory) of kilometres of cycle lanes and making the vast majority of roads cycle friendly. Many Parisian streets are narrow and one way for cars but new lanes and markings have made many of them two way for bikes. All of a sudden it is cheaper, easier and more pleasurable to ride than get in a car. VELo LIBeration (Bicycle Freedom) – I think Fremantle could do with a bit of that.
PS In the Fremantle 2010/2011 budget we increased our expenditure on bicycle lanes and other infrastructure around ten fold to close to $400k so we should see some decent changes underway to make Fremantle a more bike friendly city. There is also a renewed push for bike-share in Fremantle which would be great if it can get up. Look out for a Fremantle Network event on this in the near future.
Hopefully this gets the Mayor energised to drive bike sharing forward on his return to Fremantle.
….then quickly denied (well bike sharing being bad was denied…but the UN conspiracy behind it stands). Treehugger has a good summary of the whole story.
Last week, we reported that a Republican candidate for the Colorado governorship had declared that Denver’s bike-sharing program was a threat to our personal freedoms. Since then, Tea Party-backed Dan Maes has faced some scrutiny in the press for his ambiguous statements: Along with threatening our freedoms, he claimed that bike-sharing was part of a deeper plot to turn the city into a “UN community”. When asked what he meant in a television interview, Maes had trouble explaining himself — and dug himself further into a hole by alleging that the bike-sharing program could be “incompatible with our state constitution”.
Happyzine has published an article about the Cyclefreo business model and how it differs from other models around the world. You can read the full article here.
More about Happyzine
Happyzine – where optimism and sustainability meet.
Happyzine is dedicated to focusing on the brighter side of life. We celebrate what’s going well, and dream together about what’s possible. Happyzine is a positive news website, weekly electronic magazine and blog with a strong Aotearoa flavour. We focus on the environment, Maori, youth, and inspiring New Zealanders. Happyzine also includes general good news from around the planet, opinion pieces, blogs, positive thinking success stories, and much, much, more.
Great article about Cyclefreo in the Fremantle Gazette. There is some good detail about Social Enterprise and the advantages to the community and Fremantle as a whole.
Click the image to read article
An article about Cyclefreo has been published in the Fremantle Herald which runs through the basics of the bike system. You can see the full article below but there are a few things that need to be clarified from the article as they could mislead and are a bit out of context without the rest of the conversation.
The bike system does use credit cards to buy an annual subscription however pre-paid credit cards are not core to the system working. Any credit card can purchase an annual subscription or day pass and you are then provided with an electronic key to unlock bikes.
I have been talking to Notre Dame University in relation to the business model as it is a social business with social goals rather than a purely profit driven business. Things got crossed over a bit as the article quotes a partnership in relation to a pilot program, talk about pilot programs have been with the City of Fremantle and Public Transport Authority and there is a possibility for Notre Dame University to be part of this but at present I am only talking to them about the business model as this is an area they have expertise with from working in the social arena for such a long time.
Click on the article to read in full
Other than that it is good to see the Fremantle Mayor providing input but really I would like to see more information on the business model and the ideas behind social business because these are really what make this different to other Bike Share Systems around the world. They have asked me to write a thinking allowed article on this which could be a good way to raise awareness about social business.
As a way of getting as much feedback and support for Cyclefreo as we can we have posted the plan on PlanBig. PlanBig is an initiative by Bendigo and Adelaide bank to facilitate idea spreading and collaboration around ideas.
From the PlanBig website -
Make it happen. Make a difference.
PlanBig makes it all possible.Sometimes it can be tough to find a way to make things happen. It might be that you’d like to get people together to make a difference in a local community. It could be that you have an ‘idea’ but aren’t sure of how to get it kick started.
That’s what PlanBig is all about. Or rather, that’s what you, and thousands of others just like you in communities right across Australia (and the planet) can make it be all about.
Get Involved, get connected, get active
We could call PlanBig ‘the next phase in the power of online communities’, but really it’s just about like-minded people coming together to give each other the support they need to make their dreams reality.
Openforum.com.au has posted a article about Cyclefreo focused on the Social Business model it is based on and comparing it to the existing business models employed for Bike Sharing in Australia.
You can read the article “Brisbane, Melbourne & ‘Freo’, 3 models for bike-sharing” here and below is some more information about Openforum.com.au
Open Forum is an independent, non-profit, collaborative think-tank built around an interactive discussion website hosted and moderated by Global Access Partners (GAP). It provides a platform for focused dialogue on Australian public policy and social issues.
Open Forum is registration-based and enables participants to make connections, share their opinions and concerns, test their ideas, raise and discuss specific topics, suggest solutions and ultimately contribute to policy development and economic outcomes for government and business, as well as the democratic process in general.
