Pulling the Wool Bicing, sustainable behind all the headlines and back-patting? by Anna Gurney

“El Periodico recently published an article with the headline that “Los barceloneses dan buena nota al Bicing”. Although that’s pretty much the opposite of my experience (frustrating to the point of trying to throw the bike in the sea) I nearly believed them until I noticed that 82% of the participants in the survey had NEVER used a Bicing bike – not particularly qualified to award those grades then. Is Bicing propaganda always this poorly backed up? And more to the point, should we believe all they tell us about the system’s green credentials? The word sustainable is all over Bicing marketing but if you look beyond the image they like to portray there are plenty of unanswered questions.

TMB’s marketing plan says that Bicing has “a very efficient balance of energy” and Josep Mª Deulofeu from Barcelona de Serveis Municipals (B:SM) reported in September 2008 that the average Bicing journey of 3 km saves 480 gr. of CO2. Unfortunately this statistic assumes the journey would otherwise have been done in an average-sized car. The reality is that the vast majority (90%) use the bike as a substitute for walking or using public transport, thus not actually saving much or any carbon emissions at all. It’s difficult to say exactly how many kilometres have been done by clean green bike instead of a private vehicle because the latest available data was collected on a “number of users” during the warm summer months of 2007 when nearly half the current users had not yet signed up (subscriptions increased 89% to 170,000 in 2008), but more users does not necessarily mean former drivers turning to Bicing as a better, more sustainable option. In addition, it doesn’t take a post-graduate thesis and a conference in Philadelphia, (or does it?) to work out that bikes end up downhill and need to be dragged back up. So, the real question is, what would happen to these “carbon saving” statistics if, as well as doing proper research and providing accurate statistics, they also accounted for the 30 vans and trailers in constant use to transport the bikes?

It is not widely advertised that a massive multinational company, Clear Channel, run Bicing, and even less often mentioned that in November they were delivered an ultimatum – improve the service or lose your 10-year contract. David Sogge, a consultant on development aid, suggested during a recent lecture here that Bicing is a positive example of people thinking and acting differently from the “mass consumerism and never mind the future” model, but he did not mention that at the moment it is in the hands of a neo-liberal company that itself failed an Oekem sustainability test (and has shown pro-war and pro-coal mining tendencies). When I pointed this out to him, he agreed that lack of transparency is the big problem. We don’t know for sure what this company is gaining from their involvement in a project widely promoted as state run, but can we call it sustainable if the company running it is obviously not?

All said and done, promoting cycling is a great idea, but to be a long-term solution to traffic and other environmental problems Bicing needs to work. At the moment it is unreliable (33,000 complaints registered in the first year speak louder than a poorly conducted survey) and many users say they will not pay the bumped up 30€ fee this year. As far as sustainability credentials, please demand more…and stay alert to any bullshit being sent your way.

Check in at: bicingyrobing.blogspot.com