Thursday, December 18th, 2008 ::: "Street Furniture"

Last week in Eye Weekly, Jonathan Goldsbie exposed meetings that were taking place between Astral Media and City Councillor Adrian Heaps regarding the City’s attempts to develop a bike rental program. It appears that Councillor Heaps unilaterally decided to meet with Astral Media and asked Astral for a non-competitive proposal for bike rentals; Heaps also provided Astral Media with City transportation data at the same time that both City officials and Heaps himself are refusing to meet with other companies. Heaps and his staff have justified the favourable treatment of Astral Media by repeatedly telling Toronto’s cycling activists the myth that Astral Media has the “right of first refusal” for a bike sharing program pursuant to the “street furniture” contract.

Fortunately, we have a copy of the contract.

It is now quite clear that the Chair of the City’s Cycling Committee substantially misled Toronto’s cycling activists about the options the City has for public bike rental. Fortunately, City staff themselves have rejected Heaps’ interpretation of the “street furniture” contract.

Today, Eye published our letter to the editor that explains our position on the matter:

MAKE BIKES AD-FREE

Re “Bike-sharing ad absurdum,” City, Dec. 11: The manner in which the chair of Toronto’s Cycling Committee, Councillor Adrian Heaps, is managing Toronto’s attempt to build a public bike-rental system is sub-optimal at best, and a sellout at worst.

The question is whether Toronto will issue a competitive Request for Proposals for a bike-rental program and then pick the best proposal; or whether the city will sole-source the deal to Astral Media without having seen all the available options.

Adrian Heaps and his staff appear to be the only people at City Hall who believe that the city’s street furniture contract grants the “right of first refusal” for a bike rental program to Astral Media. I’ve read the contract and the associated City Council decisions, which authorized the contract. The contract makes no such grant and senior transportation services staff have confirmed as much.

On the other hand, the contract does grant Astral a monopoly over elements on Toronto’s road allowance that contain advertising. This means that Toronto cannot go forward with a competitive RFP for bike sharing unless the city specifies that the bikes don’t have ads. Thankfully, the ad-free bike model has proven successful elsewhere. Paris’ 20,000-bike Vélib’ system doesn’t have ads on it because ads on bikes don’t make money.

Incidentally, the Vélib’ bikes are subsidized by way of a payment-in-kind made by Paris’ street furniture provider. This could be what is confusing Mr. Heaps into thinking that bike rentals and street furniture go hand in hand; but Heaps ought to note that the Vélib’ bikes were selected after a competitive RFP, which included a bike-rental element. Heaps should also note that Toronto’s street furniture RFP was not graded on bike rental, and that it requires Astral Media to make payments in cash.

At this point, Mayor Miller needs to clear up this mess and ensure that Toronto obtains the best bike-rental program for its money. To do that, he should ensure that the system is advertising-free — that’s the only way the system can be purchased by way of a competitive RFP.

Sincerely,

Rami Tabello, co-ordinator, IllegalSigns.ca