Villo? No.

Colin Moors takes a stand against the city bike.

The city bike (Villo here in Belgium, Vélib in France and the so-called ‘Boris Bike’ in London) is always sold as a green solution, a public service or something that gives one a sense of freedom and liberty. I’m going to go against the flow here and be the voice of dissent. I don’t like city bikes and there’s a good chance I never will. As usual, I will preface my piece with full disclosure: I am one of those city cyclists who wears a high visibility jacket, stops at red lights and rides either on the cycle path or the road, something that appears to be something of an outmoded concept. My focus will be on Brussels, my city.

What price Villo?

The European Commission announced on March 24 this year that they are launching an in-depth investigation into the public contracts between the city of Brussels and the French advertising behemoth, JC Decaux.

JC Decaux, as you may know, operates the Villo bikes in Brussels. You will also notice that there is a rotating advertising hoarding to accompany each Villo station. This is not a spectacular coincidence, as such hoardings bring in a huge income. Guess who gets to keep the money?

The Commission investigation will focus not on the insidious and cynical business of an advertising company passing of the provision of ‘services’ to a city as a gesture of goodwill and mutual benefit. Indeed, the Commission is keen to point out that it “…does not question the definition of Villo as a public service nor the fact that JC Decaux receives a compensation for performing this public service” but will instead turn their attention to over-compensation, as they legally and politely put it.

Brussels city has designated the Villo scheme as a Service of General Economic Interest (SGEI), which means they deem it “of particular importance to citizens”. Under the SGEI conditions, JC Decaux receive state aid in relation to their performing this service. JC Decaux have an exclusive concession following a tender procedure in 2008 and receive tax concessions as well as state aid from the Brussels government. It’s this and what it terms the “distortion of competition” that interests the Commission.

The fact remains that this represents nothing but a huge advertising land grab by one of the biggest ad companies in Europe. We are paying for this three times; via the advertising budgets of the companies selling us products, from state aid and from tax concessions to a huge and highly profitable company, one that reported over €2 billion in overall profit for 2014.

Far from being altruistic or in any way a ‘public service’ this is taking money out of your pocket to sell things to you, with the sweetener of a low-cost bike service thrown in to make it more digestible. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Endless cycle of terror?

My other complaint would be that the philosophy of these bikes doesn’t lend itself to the due care and attention cycling demands. Before we get into this any further, yes, I appreciate that cyclists in Brussels (or most towns in Europe) don’t always set a shining example of road-borne behaviour. This is a combination of many factors – not least the abysmal performance of the police. I’m not a huge fan of hordes of cops everywhere but when I regularly see people cycling past police while on the pavement with not so much as a caution, it’s hardly surprising. Cyclists are bound by the same laws as car drivers, with a few exceptions. There should be a consequence for non-compliance.

It’s also a requirement of hire that the hirer has public liability insurance, something many if not most Belgians will have as part of a home policy or through a business. But who checks the tourists who buy a card from a newsagent and cycle off with gay abandon? Nobody – and a day in court in Belgium doesn’t come cheap.

Back on topic, an example. The Villo stations at the top of hills are often empty, while the ones at the bottom are full. People are employed to pick up the bikes from the full stations and return them to the empty ones. This embodies the philosophy of the Villo in much the same way as a Burger King or McDonald’s ‘meal’ represents food. You use it, you discard it and it provides no tangible value to your day. Those who use it show the same disregard for any of the major highway rules. The ones who do use the road correctly are in a tiny minority. Brussels is tacitly condoning the use of Villo bikes (thus all bikes) on the pavement. Take a walk down to the newly pedestrianized parts of the town centre. The only thing more dangerous than the inconsiderate Villo users are the cops on Segways who appear oblivious to the rules about not using bikes in pedestrianized areas.

The philosophy behind Villo is allegedly one of the freedom to move around the city – one that would be better put across if the city was funding the project. Because an advertising company has the contract, and makes a tidy profit off the adverts it displays polluting the city with yet more unnecessary hard selling of the likes of Quick, Pizza Hut, Coke, Lays and many other big-margin products, all we are left with is the freedom to be sold things – and we end up paying for the privilege.

It is up to the city to make us more mobile. Our bus service here is arguably a very good one and bus lanes abound but until more and more clearly marked cycle paths can be installed Brussels will still lag behind cities like Leuven, Antwerp and Ghent in mobility. It’s not enough to say ‘here are some low-cost bikes, go nuts’ because that’s exactly what the Villo consumers do.

How Green was my Villo?

It’s debatable. They are apparently meant to alleviate the number of cars on the road but in reality are only really used by those who wish to be further downhill more quickly than walking. I couldn’t find any figures anywhere relating to the number of cars taken off the roads but I can’t see it being a lot. So, if we take into account the cost of supplying and maintaining these bikes and the stations in terms of the environmental cost of producing the raw materials and add to it the carbon created by the numerous vans that take bikes from one station to another, there’s a very good chance it’s far from a carbon-neutral scheme.

The vans aren’t even effective at ensuring that the stations have bikes either. A quick look at www.wheresmyvillo.be will show you that the system consistently fails to deliver on even this front.

As a cyclist, I applaud any initiative that gets people cycling. It’s not the cycling I am against, it’s the fact that a need was packaged and sold by an advertising company in order to extract money out of people like you and me. They don’t care about cycling, they care only about their bottom line – and a very healthy situation it is for them, judging by their last financial reports. We deserve better.

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