Bike-share system ready for installation

The equipment for Budapest's bike-share system, set for launch in April, is in the warehouse and ready for installation beginning next month.

According to the kerekagy blog, the 1,000+ bikes and 76 docking stations are being tested at a Csepel warehouse, and will be installed, regardless of weather, starting in February around central Pest and along the Buda-side riverbank. The Budapest Transport Center (BKK) promises that after a short testing period, Bubi will open to the public in April.

For local manufacturer Csepel, this marks a debut in the bike-sharing business. The bikes look great, but how well they will stand up in daily operations remains to be seen.

When I first looked at the video, I was surprised that the user directions on the docking stations were in Hungarian only. Afterall, BKK has said the system is for anyone who'd like to use a bike in Budapest.

However, BKK's cycling affairs officer Virág Bence-Kovács assured me that English translation is being developed, and will be displayed alongside the Hungarian by launch day. (Then she asked me to proofread the text -- so, be careful what you ask for.)

In the video, you can see that bicycles will also be used as Bubi's service vehicles. Special bikes with trailers will be deployed to take Bubi bikes to and from the repair garage, and also to redistribute bikes from full docking points to empty ones.

I don't know if this is an untried approach, but for the systems I've seen (Paris, London and Brussels), petrol-fueled trucks are used for this purpose. Bubi's zero-carbon approach is cool -- and I assume completely practical considering the system's relatively small service area.

It's interesting to note that the Bubi service bikes are a Hungarian novelty. They're string bikes, which feature a bizarre (and relatively expensive) drive system. Their inventor claims the string bike drive shifts more smoothly and is more durable than the chain drive. It looks like Csepel, which recently started manufacturing the string bike for the mass market, is using Bubi to popularise the product.

Barclays sets bad example as bike sponsor

Once the proud sponsor of London's bikes, Barclays
"has now made a commercial decision not to continue the sponsorship."

The news that Budapest's bike share system, Bubi, will be sponsored by the Mol gas and oil company has naturally met with with some skepticism. Many think it's no more than green washing.

At the risk of looking like a sap, I've reserved judgement. Although not a fan of big oil, I think that it could be good for a prominent corporation like Mol to have a stake in Bubi's success.

The system is scheduled to launch in April and it's a matter of real urgency to improve the bike-ability of downtown Budapest before this wave of new cyclists hits the streets. The city has embarked on a slapdash campaign to paint bike lanes and post bike signage around the Bubi service area, but if these steps aren't adequate, Bubi's users will be at risk. That poses a PR risk to Mol, and, if I were them, I'd be lobbying shoulder-to-shoulder with cycling advocates for more serious safety improvements -- including bike accommodation around the Nagykörút.

But is this how Mol sees it? I had a blog exchange with Todd Edelman at the Slow Factory a couple weeks ago, after Mol was publicly announced as Bubi's sponsor. He suspected green washing, and noted examples of this in the bike-sharing business, including the London bike-share scheme and Barclays Bank.

Indeed, there's been plenty of controversy with that arrangement -- and not just because of the Barclays scandal involving illegal rigging of financial markets. Some on the London Assembly have criticised Barclays's sponsorship as a raw deal for the city.

But the developments of last week really took the cake. Amidst a drawn out media controversy concerning cycling safety in London, Barclays announced it would abandon the bike scheme. The company would finish out its contract that ends in August 2015, but would not extend.

According to the bank's PR people, the decision was part of a long-anticipated strategic decision, and had nothing to do with the road-safety flap. But many have found this hard to swallow. The controversy began in July, when a French-born student became the first person to die on a Boris Bike. And it boiled over in November, as six cyclists died on London roads in the space of less than two weeks.

London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon was quoted in the Guardian:

"Barclays have received immense benefits from the publicity given to the cycle hire scheme in its early years, but now that its performance is looking shaky they appear to be bailing out.

Mol CEU Zsolt Hernádi has a chance to do corporate social responsibility right.

Needless to say, this isn't a shining moment for corporate social responsibility. But the possibility's open for Mol to set a better example here in Budapest. The company's been doing small, one-off cycling sponsorships ever since cycling became trendy in Budapest in the mid-aughts. But Bubi is by far their biggest-profile cycling project to date. Hopefully, Mol will prove itself more than a fair-weathered friend.

Petrol company gives fuel to Bubi

Hungary's petrol giant seeking green credentials?

This was announced last month in the Hungarian press, but I wanted to post it here in case you've missed it: Budapest's soon-to-launch bike-sharing system, Bubi, has landed a corporate sponsor, Hungarian oil-and-gas company Mol.

The announcement was made at a joint press conference in early November held by Budapest Mayor István Tarlos and Mol President Zsolt Hernádi. The two wheeled out the system's new bikes, produced by Budapest-based Csepel company and sporting Mol's logo and green-and-red corporate colours.

According to the three-year sponsorship deal, Mol will fund the system to the tune of HUF 122 million a year, about half the system's expected annual operating costs HUF 250 million. The city forecasts user revenues of HUF 70 million, with the remaining cost, about HUF 50 million, to be covered by a municipal subsidy.

Ninety percent of Bubi's capital financing, nearly HUF 900 million, will be covered by the EU. This poses some restrictions on corporate sponsorship, but according to the Budapest Transport Centre (BKK), the arrangment is OK as long as it doesn't earn the city a profit.

This  isn't Mol's first foray into the cycling business. A couple years ago, it introduced "bicycle points" (bringapontok) at its filling stations. Found at about a third of Mol's 365 stations, bicycle points are essentially branded shelves full of innertubes, patch kits, locks and other cycling paraphernalia. Mol has also carried out various bike-related marketing efforts, including mobile bike repair stations during summer at the Balaton and, on at least one occasion, sponsorship of the bike valet parking system at the Sziget Festival.

Mol's Hernádi noted that "Mol wants to serve all road users, regardless of what travel mode or fuel they use."

For his part, Tarlos noted that cycling levels in Budapest have multiplied by five times since 1994 and that there was a need to "simplify the city's transport system and expand the range of public transport alternatives." With the launch of Bubi, "the first aim is the development of the cycling culture," he said.

In preparation for Bubi's launch, forecast for April 2014, the city is implementing several small measures to improve cycling conditions on the roads inside the system's downtown service area. The improvements will cover more than 100 roads -- with the glaring exception of the nagykörút. Installation of Bubi's 74 docking stations is slated to begin in February, Tarlos said.

Sziget Festival: an Old Fart's View

This guy has a great attitude -- unlike me. Photo courtesy of  the Sziget Festival.

These are the dog days of summer in Budapest so along with heat waves, tick infestations and a virtual shut-down of the non-touristic economy, there is the annual bane of my commuting existence -- the Sziget Festival. In my younger days, of course, I looked forward to this international pop music extravaganza. But now that I'm a crusty old fart who doesn't even recognize most of the names on the Main Stage programme (The Beatsteaks? Two-Door Cinema Club?), the festival has become for me just a week-long nuisance, situated as it is on the Buda Quay right in the middle of my work commute.

The festival is on Hajógyari Sziget (Boat Factory Island -- during the rest of the year, a tranquil public park with an incredible, free-of-charge collection of slides for the kiddies) and the way that most day visitors get there is by taking the Szentendrei HÉV. They get off at the Filitorigát stop and from there it's a jam-packed queue of about 400 metres to the festival entrance. The queue is right on the bike path so if you happen to be cycling there in the evening, when most people come up to the Sziget, you will get caught in the queue.

This year the organisers worked out a detour and they've posted maps of it along the bike path at both the northern and southern approaches to the Sziget. The last two days I've stopped and studied these signs but I couldn't decipher them. Both days, I forged ahead following some yellow arrow signs that I assumed delineated the Sziget detour. But within a couple hundred metres, the arrows ran out and I was lost on some back street by a district heating plant in this industrial no-man's land west of Szentendrei út. I ended up coming back to Szentendrei út a couple kilometres north of the Sziget, and then riding on that street for about 5 km to Békásmegyer, where I could finally rejoin the bike path. Szentendrei út is a busy, 70 km/hr thoroughfare that's a hazard to anyone not encased in an army tank. I've decided for the remainder of the Sziget (until Sunday evening), I will stick to the bike path despite the queues of festival goers.

I should say, as a public service for those who like music festivals, that the Sziget Festival actually has some excellent accommodations for cyclists. For the past several years, they've offered free, guarded bike parking on site. Previously, it was managed by the Hungarian Cyclists' Club, this year it seems to have been taken over by MOL, the Hungarian petrol station chain. Is this a case of green washing or a commercial contingency for the post-petrol era? MOL actually has a multi-faceted "bike programme", which I wrote about here.

The Sziget organisers have a whole "mobility management" plan to deal with the tens of thousands of people who come to the festival -- half from outside Hungary. I wrote about that here.

This year's relevant info on Sziget bike parking and other travel pointers are here.