I am terribly excited about the forthcoming London Cycle Hire Scheme. The official launch date is Fri 30th July and I, for one, can't wait. The Cycle Hire scheme will make my life a whole lot easier. My commute to the office is currently too far to cycle everyday (Chiswick to Old street) I did take my bike on the overground for a while but had to travel out of peak hours so that didn't really work. Once I am in in East London I usually have to do trips to our warehouse or meetings nearby and usually end up trying to borrow my colleague's bike or surrendering to the obvious... public transport. So for me it is going to be the ideal solution.
My Mum is equally as excited! She commutes into Euston and then has 20 minute walk to her office. She will soon be able to hop on a hire bike and cut her journey by a good 15 minutes.
And I'm pretty sure its not just me and my Mum who are going to benefit from the Cycle Hire scheme. I imagine there are thousands of people who live and work in London who will be able to jump on a bike as part of their day to day journeys.
There will be 400 docking stations all over central London, take a look at the Cycle Hire scheme area map for exact perimeters. The docking stations will be no more than 300m apart so you can always find one to fit in with your journey. TFL have invested millions in the scheme and have recently secured Barclays as the sponsor. The scheme is predicted to increase cycle journeys in London by 40,000 a day on top of the current 500,000 journeys a day.
I had a go on one of the bikes at last years Cycle show and they are very comfortable to ride. They maybe a bit heavier than the average city bike but they're a smooth ride and are a rather nice shiny blue colour. They also have a front carrier for your bag with a bungee straps attached to keep it secure.
If you are excited about the scheme but feeling a bit wobbly about cycling in London. Follow us on twitter
We will b e giving out lots of helpful tip and advice once the Scheme starts.
6 comments:
Thanks for this post. Our recently introduced bike share scheme here in Melbourne is slowly going down the gurgler due to our ridiculous helmet laws. Sadly, I believe we will have the unenviable distinction of being the first city to have such a scheme fail. Hope yours fares better.Happy cycling~ian, Melbourne
That's great! In Montreal the Bixi program is in it's second fabulously successful year!
http://www.bixi.com/home
Hi Ian, what a shame! I can see how making helmets compulsory would put a fly in the ointment as people don't generally carry a helmet around with them! It takes away the spontaneity of people just having a go. Do you think they should relax the helmet laws?
Hi Q smith. Great to hear its working in Montreal, fingers crossed the London scheme will have the same success.
I believe in Mexico City they relaxed the helmet laws in order to make the bike share scheme work. Unfortunately, I believe we need our scheme to fail in order to bring the politicians to their senses. They won't change the law otherwise. I'm sure you'll be able to read all about it in Copenhagenize ,as Michael Colville-Andersen is currently here in Melbourne. regards,Ian
I read your post when it went up and I thought it might interest you to know that the London cycle scheme was focused on the Japanese morning news today. It got a lot of praise which is especially cool considering how many people in Tokyo (and Japan) already commute by bike.
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