Wait, we’re going to pay Trek $100,000 for three years so they can make money renting bikes in our parks?
a. This is money from the contingent reserve, which is usually used for emergencies or overruns for things like snow plowing and police overtime and other unexpected costs.
b. The resolution allows them to lease space in our parks to Trek, but doesn’t say how much that lease will be.
c. This agreement doesn’t indicate how affordable the bike rentals will be. How much will we have to pay in addition to $300K for this opportunity? And where will these bikes be?
d. If this were budget time, would this be a priority? I’d rather see $100,000 a year for community services that didn’t get funded.
e. If this is something the City of Madison wants, why wasn’t there an RFP for the service?
Title: Amending the 2011 Operating Budget by appropriating $100,000 from the Contingent Reserve to the Parks Division and authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to execute a three year agreement and lease with “B-cycle LLC.” Various AD’s
Preamble: The City of Madison has been approached by parties interested in providing a rental bicycle sharing service. The system proposed by B-cycle LLC, the vendor of the equipment, involves kiosks and locked storage docks for bicycles. B-Cycle was formed out of a partnership involving Trek Bicycles, a local international corporation and ongoing partner in the City’s successful Ride the Drive events. The B-Cycle bikes are rented by use of a credit card, after which the rented unit is released from the dock. Bikes must be returned by the end of the day, and may be returned to a kiosk and dock other than that of the original rental, if a space is available. It is expected that several rental kiosks will be located on City of Madison property, and elsewhere throughout the City, as part of this program. In addition to the cost of purchasing the equipment and necessary licenses to run the program, if the City were to run the program there would be additional costs (such as maintenance and liability related issues) that would make the service difficult to operate and cost-prohibitive to provide. By providing leased public space and contributing financially to the program, the City can successfully provide its citizens with this service, at less cost and liability risk than if it were to do so itself. This system is currently active in a number of European and American cities, including Paris, Chicago, Denver, and Des Moines. The proposed system would be externally owned, operated, and maintained. The City will lease space for some of the bike stations.
Whereas, the Trek Bicycle Corporation is a Madison area-based company that is among the largest bike manufacturers in the world and a major employer in our region; and
Whereas, Trek has proposed that Madison be a pilot city for its prototype B-Cycle bicycle sharing system, a unique product on the world market; and
Whereas, Trek made this proposal after passage of the 2011 City of Madison operating budget, requiring a budget amendment to meet its objectives; and
Whereas, Trek is proposing that the company provide high quality bikes, bike parking stations, bike maintenance and repositioning, and GIS systems (the value of the capital investments alone at about $1.4 million) for three years; and
Whereas, Trek proposes that the City contribute $100,000 for each of the next three years to maintain the system; and
Whereas, the B-Cycle bike sharing system will: be an important amenity and means of transportation for City residents, workers and visitors; bring visitors to our downtown; displace car traffic and take pressure off of downtown parking; help Madison meet its goals of reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and having 20% of all downtown trips done by bike by 2020; provide a major area employer with a meaningful test of its new product in an easily accessible location for the company to observe and improve it; and
Whereas, this test and demonstration could lead to new production and jobs for Madison residents;
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the 2011 Operating Budget be amended by appropriating $100,000 from the Contingent Reserve to the Parks Division as follows: GN01-54901-617150 $100,000
AND BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the Mayor and City Clerk are authorized to enter into a three year agreement and lease with B-cycle, LLC to operate the B-Cycle program in Madison, consistent with this resolution.
Fiscal Note: The three year agreement provides for a $100,000 annual contribution from the City for support of this program. For the Year 2011, funding of $100,000 would be appropriated from the Contingent Reserve to Parks Division account GN01-54901-617150. Funding for the subsequent two years would be requested through the regular operating budget process.
Ok, NOW that European bike tour is starting to look fishy. And what “jobs for Madison residents” is this going to lead to? I can’t imagine this could possibly pass as a budget amendment.
Crazy in so many ways. If we want to rent bikes in some of the local parks, why not lease space to interested local bike shops who could maintain them as part of ongoing operations — instead of setting up an expensive program with a large corporation, for whom each rental wouldsimply be a marketing opportunity.
Trek makes great bikes, but it’s not self-evident that they would be the most cost-effective for a rental operation.
My understanding is that Trek is making a $4.5m investment over three years to get this off the ground. Trek will not make any money on this deal. $300,000 from the city for $4.5m in private investment? Seems ok to me.
For perspective, Minneapolis’s bike share program took $1.75m to get started (https://www.niceridemn.org/sponsors/) and Boulder is spending around $1.3m (http://www.coloradodaily.com/ci_17011815#axzz1BynInNrF).
Setting up bike sharing in Madison puts money into a local business (although admittedly not in Madison) and will increase transportation options for people in the greater downtown and university area.
Google “b-cycle” and you find this program in several American cities: Chicago, Denver, DesMoines,Louisville, etc. Some cities associate the bike kiosks with municipal parking garages or popular destinations like schools, shopping centers, and libraries. The annual membership rates vary, but $50 seems average. That gets you the first hour free. Since you can ride about 12 miles an hour, that’s represents a lot of downtown mobility.
Check out the websites each participating city has set up.
Nothing fishy about it.
Given the geography and demographics of Madison… this program might be very successful.
Kevin – Trek says capital investment of $1.4m — where did you get $4.5m figure?
Minneapolis’ program far more extensive than just rent-a-bike.
What studies have been done showing need/market for this in Madison?
Why wasn’t it put out to RFP so other interested parties could bid?
And BTW – how exactly is a company based in Jefferson County considered “a local business”?
I would rather see less money spent on reviving the red bike program. That was free to users. Old bikes were refurbished and recycled – smaller carbon footprint. But I’m obviously a socialist or communist so maybe I don’t get the whole economic development component.
Ok. Let me get this right. The City of
Madison, notorious scofflaws when it comes to protecting water quality in the Yahara Chain of Lakes, home to many individuals who are hurting economically, a leader when it comes to taxing residents, decides to spend scarce resources on a bike program?
Yes, providing alternatives to car-based transportation is a good idea, but in this economy, $300,000 could go a long way towards helping truly local businesses move forward.
Is it really the best use of these funds? Seems like a stretch to me.
cb
The marketing cynicism behind this still boggles my mind. If Trek is being so generous, what’s an extra $100k a year? Why don’t they just pay for the whole thing? Why do they need the city money? Basically, as an official city endorsement of their brand. Fortunately, it’s not likely to go anywhere.
It passed Board of Estimates
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_88d176f2-2828-11e0-a5d2-001cc4c002e0.html
Maybe this thread, with its quick-response negativity, should be called Backward Lookout.
For one thing, this isn’t about renting bikes in parks; the headline should be corrected. It’s bikes for transportation. There would be several dozen stations around town, and you could borrow from one and turn in the bike at the other. This helps a lot for people who come in on a bus, or would, but need to get to a destination that’s a mile or so from the bus line. It’s been great in Denver, DC, Minneapolis and elsewhere. In Denver, according to a 2010 survey of the users, 43 percent of the trips on B-cycle replaced car trips.
I don’t know how Trek and the city came up with the deal they did, but in other cities sponsors pay a share of the cost — Kaiser Permanente in Denver, e.g. So this seems right in line with those deals.
Eric – during the budget people got laid off, the bike coordinator got tossed out on his butt, they had to fight to get $10K for ice skating rinks, there wasn’t enough money for staff for the council office, vital community services didn’t get funding, etc etc etc because there wasn’t enough money. tough choices, etc etc
Now, a $100K is no big deal? I’d rather not have the bus fare increase. Or pay for the needed community services. Or give us Arthur Ross back.
Unintended Consequences(just saying):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111487751
“Velib was supposed to make urban travel more civilized,” lamented the daily newspaper Le Monde in an editorial. “Instead it has increased uncivilized behavior. No one expected that.”
Trek doesn’t expect to profit.
http://badgerherald.com/news/2011/01/24/city_approves_bike_s.php
From Judy K’s link:
“Despite the unexpected damage to the bikes, Velib is still a huge success, says Paris City Council member Gildas Robert.
“Because of Velib, the number of bikes on the streets of Paris has risen 30 percent,” he says. “Velib has got people buying their own bikes, too. The city is changing. The traffic is diminishing and people are driving more carefully. Velib is helping in the mayor’s strategy to reduce pollution and get people on bikes, especially for short trips.”
@brenda… I am not happy with the city budget (or mayor) either but the city needs transportation alternatives. There are too many cars. If this program is successful, it would be an important step in getting us to accept public transport.
Add to that… Madison has the right mix of geography and demographics. We have a big sprawling University with 75,000 (or so) users, we have distinct cultural landmarks: Monona Terrace, Capital, State Street, Mem. Union… one could go on and on, but you get the point, bicycle kiosks could be successful because we have the right concentrations of people and space.
If we added 30% more cyclists to the downtown scene, that would be a real game changer. It would be great for business. Imagine a kiosk at Willy Street Coop.
My guess is we would be employment positive. Somebody has to service these bikes.
@Judy Karofsky:
The NPR story says that Paris has a vandalism problem, but Lyon does not. As far as I know, vandalism and loss in other cities — e.g. Trondheim, Brussels, Minneapolis, etc., is pretty manageable.
Is Madison like Paris or like Lyon? In some ways, we wish we were Paris, but we’re probably more like Lyon, and in this case that’s good.
Surprising that no word of this raid on the contingent reserve to benefit a political contributor has made it to the newspapers.
Ooops. Brenda’s link to the report on the Board of Estimates action shows that it DID manage to get to the local papers. My bad.
What about the existing Red Bike program? We already have one of these, I think.