Helsinki may have to abandon its plan to introduce modern city-bikes next summer

An old advertising agreement threatens to topple the entire city-bike project

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Best-laid plans and all that...
      In the autumn, the City of Helsinki planned to introduce a new city-bike system in the centre of the Finnish capital next summer.
      The aim was to provide a total of 500 bikes to be placed in pickup/drop-off stations. To free a bike from the stand people could have used for example a travel card.
      However, at present the project seems rather uncertain.
     
The City was to order the new bikes from an advertising company, and in compensation for the bikes, the company would have been given a permit to sell lucrative advertising space in the streets in downtown Helsinki. However, it now transpires that the number of advertising spots available to them is only one-third of the number initially promised.
      As there are not enough advertising spots, the local taxpayers are threatened with an invoice running to hundreds of thousands of euros.
      ”If no additional advertising spots can be found and assuming that there is no political will to give additional funds, the entire project is at risk of falling apart”, says consultant Heli Rautio, who has been commissioned by Helsinki City Transport (HKL) to prepare the project.
     
The estimated costs of the new city bikes are EUR 1.5 million.
      The City of Helsinki’s share of the costs was planned to be EUR 300,000.
      The remaining costs would have been covered by the company that was supposed to supply the bikes.
      In exchange, the company would have got 150 advertising spots along the streets, where it could have placed large billboards with changing displays.
      More than 30 advertising spots would have been located in the pickup/drop-off stations of the city bikes.
     
However, the promised advertising spots have not been found.
      ”In Finland, the regulations for outdoor advertising are rather strict”, says Timo Korhonen, who is in charge of the area use sector within the Public Works Department.
      The purpose of the regulations is for example to promote traffic safety and protect the cityscape.
      ”There are only 50 to 60 places left in downtown Helsinki”, Korhonen says.
      The best places have been reserved until 2023.
      They were put out to tender in 2007.
     
Installing new advertising spots in the pickup/drop-off stations is not possible, either, unless the stations are located in statutory areas where these ads are allowed.
      ”We have been following the strict rules for four years, and we cannot start disobeying them now”, Korhonen says.
      If exemptions were given to the newcomers, their competitors could - and probably would - sue the city.
     
Previously
, Helsinki planned to introduce city-owned bicycles in 2010.
      The budget was roughly of the same size, and the problem was the same, too - the tendering of outdoor advertising.
      The project was toppled by the price-tag of EUR 1.0 million.
      The cost of the current project will climb to the same sum, if two-thirds of the planned advertising funding falls apart.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Helsinki plans to launch bicycle hire service next summer (26.9.2011)
  Helsinki abandons free-to-use CityBikes (12.4.2010)

Links:
  Helsinki Region Transport: Walking and Cycling

Helsingin Sanomat