cognoshanty

Putting the lib back in Velib

Note: Some lunatic who's probably spent too much time watching the primaries sent me this text. I would have deleted it, but he threatened to puncture my tires, so here it is.

Vélib is a communist system. You don't own a bike, you just borrow it for a short time, then return it to the Borg-like collective. Scary? No doubt. What do you expect from a system first installed by Socialist mayors in La Rochelle, Rennes, and Lyon, and inspired by various Nordic or Germanic über-collectivist states like Holland and Denmark?

However, I must confess that, due to my distaste for plebeian mass transportation systems, the long wait for my preferred vehicle, and a regrettable accident that left the front wheel of my previous locomotion device looking like a Moebius strip, I've been using Vélib on a regular basis. I keep getting fined for gluing "Live Free or Die" fender stickers on the rear of these commie-mobiles, but it's a small price to pay for the defense of liberty.

Bicycle commuting in Paris is an occasion for prolonged meditation on many subjects, such as death, violence, and the impossibility of cohabiting with one's fellow humans. But, occasionally, more practical considerations emerge. I'd like to propose three free-market improvements to Vélib (and the future Auto-lib), in the vain hope that freedom shall not perish from the earth:

1. Pay us for returning bicycles to stations on hills or in undesirable locations.

I am fortunate to live in a shining apartment upon a hill. Regrettably, this means the only time nearby stations aren't empty is early in the morning, after a Vélib truck has restocked the stations with the gravity-averse, 22-kilogram vehicles.

There's little incentive to bring a Vélib back up the hill. It's far easier to drop the bike off at the bottom, then walk home or (shudder) take a metro or bus. Indeed, returning the bicycle is discouraged: should you take the extra muscle-burning time to drag the beast up the hill in low gear, you may find you have exceeded the free half hour of use and be charged an extra euro for your pains.

Our central-planning masters seem to think it's enough for a fleet of polluting trucks piloted by disenchanted wage-slaves to periodically remedy the imbalance between overstocked stations and empty ones. It's not: for most of the day, large parts of the city have no available bicycles.

A better solution would be to give credit to individuals who go against the current. With proper incentives, the system could be self-balancing. You could even imagine armies of the homeless or unemployed or workoutaholics eking a healthy living rushing bicycles from popular spots to unpopular ones.

2. Allow users to provide feedback on the bicycle they just used.

Socialism expects its citizens to thank the state for its largesse and otherwise keep their mouths shut. But freedom and efficiency demand that we talk back when things go wrong, as they often do.

Vélib bicycles break down due to flat tires, broken chains and gears, bent wheels, vandalism, and so on. The only way to signal an unusable or damaged bicycle is a folksy one: you leave the bicycle with its seat turned backwards. A better way would be to let users give finer-grained feedback on the bicycle they just used at the computer terminal of the station where they return it.

3. Open up the system to competition.

Vélib and the patented Cyclocity system were designed and implemented by the advertising giant JCDecaux. I applaud this triumph of free enterprise and its dynamic instigators for modernizing an antique transportation device with smart cards, RFID, cell networks, computer servers, and the Internet.

Unfortunately, Decaux now has a monopoly on shared bicycles in Paris. What's more, neighboring cities wanting to adopt the system have no choice but to make a deal with Decaux if they want to be compatible with Paris. In exchange for installing and running the Vélib system, Decaux is given a form of monopoly on outdoor advertising in the city. That's how Vélib got its derogatory nickname of Vépub, where "pub" stands for "publicité", French for "advertising".

It's been said that successful businessmen dislike capitalism and competition, since they're happiest operating in a monopoly or a cartel. Vélib is an example of how socialism and monopolies go hand in hand. Socialism delivers workers and consumers drugged, gagged and hand-tied to greedy and soulless monopolies. What better way to do that than by allying with the world's biggest operators of outdoor propaganda?

Open standards, interoperability, and freely available information would loosen Paris's dictatorial Faustian pact. Other companies or individuals or organizations should be allowed to:
- Provide bicycles that fit into Decaux's stations.
- Create new stations that integrate with Decaux's system.
- Disseminate information better than Vélib's Pravda-like website.
- Propose innovations, such as GPS-equipped stationless bicycles that could be attached anywhere, electrically-powered Vélibs, and different-colored Vélibs to match your outfit.

Posted by Kai Carver at February 10, 2008 05:19 AM