On Your Bike !!!

As you know I like cities.  And, I like bicycles.  And, I like bicycles in cities.

It seems I’m not alone.  All around the world there are many initiatives to encourage bicycle use in cities because it has many benefits.  So, over the next few weeks I’ll feature some of these initiatives but lets’ start with London.

London is a busy city and traffic congestion is a serious problem.  It also has a well known bicycle riding mayor, Boris Johnson.


So, Barclay’s Bank has gave London a couple of million pounds to set up the scheme, and now every cycle hire bike and cycle superhighway in the city is emblazoned with its name and logo.

The scheme is pretty successful … it’s users have cycled 10 million kilometres in 6 months.

It’s pretty cheap with annual membership at £45 pounds, and if you only use the bikes for trips of 30 minutes or less, that’s all you’ll pay all year. Trips over 30 minutes long start incurring additional charges.

Nearly 5,000 bicycles and 316 docking stations were activated on London’s streets at start up and since then, numbers have climbed even further, with over 400 functional docking stations throughout London’s Zone 1 – an area of around 45 square kilometres.

New docking stations have been introduced throughout the city – including an 124 space dock at Waterloo Station and existing docks have been extended to meet demand. And, the scheme also gradually being introduced eastwards in time for the 2012 Olympics. The growth of the scheme into east London will bring 2,000 new bikes over an additional 20 square kilometres, with 4,200 more individual docking points introduced across the whole cycle hire area.

It’s pretty impressive for a city that already has great public transport and not so great weather.

Even that famous American actor and politician, Arnold Schwarzeneger has tried the London bicycles when he went for a spin with the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. Later tweeting that he ‘loved riding the Boris bikes’.

See you on your bike in London soon.

Francesco …