YouBike You Know: The Guardian Promotes Taipei YouBike Program

Taxpayer Funded Bike Path in Daya Township, Taichung City


The Guardian has a couple (HERE and HERE)of successive pieces to promote the YouBike system. I think the YouBike system and Taipei bicycle lanes are becoming what they should have been when they started when the planning went into effect almost ten years ago. Both Mayor Ma and Mayor Hau approached cycling in Taipei from the perspective of bicycles as toys or sports equipment. They both emphasized the business oriented approach to cycling, where leisure cycling can cater to rental businesses, cafes, tourism and entertainment: a very bourgeoise view of one of the most transformative inventions in human history with the beneficiaries being the business and the entrepreneur. They tried to pump up interest in recreation cycling through the promotion of leisure bike paths outside the city; a movie to stimulate domestic bicycle sales. After unleashing thousands of rental bikes into a city without any space for them, the report from Jennings sums up the problem.

“We’re now making plans for education and promotion work,” said Liu Chia-yu, a division chief under the city’s transportation department. “For bike riders, we’re saying not to compete with pedestrians, and for people on foot, if you run into a bike give it some space.”    

Thousands of riders have hit the roads and they are only now making plans to educate for safety.

Mayor Ko, on the other hand, has had the political will to take on the city infrastructure with a tenacity bordering on arrogance. He wants the city a certain way and he is going to try to do it. A grid of bike lanes and actual cycling space is really what nobody had wanted to address in the past. I hope other cities will follow suit. 

Sadly, a lot of time and money was wasted catering to special interests.

   

Paved With Good Intentions: More Trouble for Taipei Bicycle Lanes

According to this report from SETN.com, Taipei has taken two steps forward and one step back in implementing a grid of bicycle lanes throughout the city.

The project, which was initiated by Mayor Ko Wen-je, an avid cyclist and former bike commuter, sought to better incorporate the bicycle into the urban transportation network. One major problem with Taipei's YouBike program-- a system of bike rentals through the city-- is that there are realistically few dedicated places to ride. Cyclists and bicycle commuters have had to fight both traffic and pedestrians in their battle for space in Taipei.

Of all the plans proposed thus far, Mayor Ko seems to have the right idea. But as a fortune cookie warned me a long time ago, "The road to hell is paved wit good intentions." (True story...and it was then that I realized that all fortune cookies were not positively ambiguous.)

It now seems that after spending NT180 million, the contractors responsible for the bike lane construction had precious little experience in actually designing bike lanes, resulting in some potentially hazardous, expensive and avoidable boo boos.

According to the Chinese language report, the city contractors used thick construction grade paint for path markings. The paint is a known hazard to cyclists as it produces an extremely slick surface in wet weather. The contractors also used porous asphalt and left metal utility covers exposed and with wide gaps. All of which pose a potential danger to cyclists and have been designed out of existing networks in Japan and other countries.

Here's to hoping Taipei gets its bike lanes squared away to be held up as an example for the rest of Taiwan to follow.   

Mayor Ko Wen-je Changing Lanes in Taipei?: Opportunities for The Bike in an Asian Metropolis

In a quick note, Taipei city has announced an increase of rental fees for the You Bike program for the first 30min. from gratis to NT 5 dollars. This is really nothing and will hopefully help subsidise Taipei's existing bicycle infrastructure.

You might be asking yourself what that infrastructure might be... and that question is still up in the air as Taipei has far more rental bikes than places to safely ride them.

Taipei's new mayor, Mr. Ko Wen-je, who has taken on the problems of Taipei's culture of overdevelopment, kickbacks and mega-rich interests first, is moving his war on the construction industrial complex to the bike lanes. Much of Taiwan's bicycle policy for the past decade has been crafted from the boardrooms of the largest bike companies and the backrooms of local and central government offices. Bicycle infrastructure is often planned on a build first and ask questions later development plan that fails to address any burning needs other than to apply another superfluous layer to an already saturated tourism scheme for non-cyclists who want to ride bikes.

According to Mayor Ko from an article in the Apple Daily,

Ko Wen-Je's book stated, "I plan to improve bicycle riding environments, including urban bike trails, bike paths and riverside public bicycle system, to promote the use of bicycles in the atmosphere gradually, so that the bicycle has become a part of people's lives. Taipei City is still not enough, "bike friendly", although there are bike lanes, but many places are used as a parking lot, resulting in a serious shortage of bike lanes, bike riders have no way to go. 

 It is with this understanding that the mayor is encouraging all citizens to join the upcoming Asian Cycling Forum, which will be held March 19-20 and coincides with the Taipei Cycle cycling expo and the start of the Tour de Taiwan stage race.

This might be a great start for cyclists to begin taking back their space from corporate and development greed.