[sustran] Tulip or whatever in the Paris region

[eric.britton at ecoplan.org]

Dear Geoff,

There has to be a single elegant word or phrase for this - whatever it is
that when all the evidence points clearly in one direction, and then, and
then, somewhere out of the woodwork creeps...  (And we're not talking
incongruity or anomaly or contradiction or grinding paradox here....)

Anyway, as I indicated to you in that note of the other day (see below) all
signs for Tulip or whatever carsharing variant in the Paris region have been
more than glum since July of last year, when one very interesting, well
funded, well supported but at the strategic core essentially brainless
demonstration project called Praxitèle was shamelessly abandoned. And
another good private effort, Caisse Commune, has been essentially allowed to
whither on the vine.

But if you go to
http://www.psa.fr/NEW/en_recherche/dossiers/tulip/en_tulip.html you will see
was PSA has (or had) to offer up on your Tulip, though I would note that
these pages have not been touched since June of last year, which coincides
with the sputtering wind down of the Renault Praxitèle. So caveat emptor. At
almost the same site, you can see what they had to say about their LISELEC
project, concerning which we had a recent message to the site from our
friends at Stationcar in the State - though there too there is that
troubling June 99 shutdown on their pages. I will however look into this a
bit and let you know if I come up with anything more solid, encouraging or
other.

There you have it, Geoff, I guess that all that remains to be done is to run
over to the closet cathedral and light a candle for carsharing in Paris.

With all good wishes,

Eric Britton

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Paris, 01/04/2000

Mr. Holland wrote on this date: 'However, a system which is expected to be
introduced into Paris by the year 2000, known as Tulip, will provide tiny
2-seater electric vehicles which are publicly-owned and maintained and
available for subscribers of the system.'

Good luck in finding a Tulip or anything like it in Paris in 2000. Whatever
you may have read on that project seems entirely out of touch with reality.
For some background on the situation on car-based experimentation and
practice in Paris - which until July of last year did have an EV component
in the suburb of Saint-Quentin - check out @World Carsharing at
http://www.ecoplan.org/carshare/.

As to the unique qualities of cars, which indeed we need to find some way to
factor into the city transport scene in the rich countries (but not just any
old way), you will also find there some thoughts and background on that as
well.  And if you want to get a good picture of how all these bits and
pieces can be made to fit together, at least within the OECD countries, and
you have to chose just one place to visit for a reality check, try Zurich.
(Also on the site.)

I hope this helps you.