VELIB is coming to London

[spindrift]

Hackney Council proposes Shoreditch as the first site in a trial:

80,000 bikes for London

By Rosee Woodland, commuting correspondent
A rider helps herself to a free bike in Barcelona (Getty Images)

London could get as many as 80,000 bikes for hire if a rental scheme in the city is given the go ahead.
Two wheels are firmly on the agenda for the UK capital, with mayor Ken Livingstone setting a stiff target of an 80 per cent increase in cycling by 2010.
Now the chief of advertising giant JC Decaux, which has helped fund Parisian bike rental scheme Velib, has revealed his hopes for a similar scheme across the Channel.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Jean-Francois Decaux, laid out a vision for 5,000 rental bikes in central London, with as many as 80,000 altogether, to take the scheme out as far as suburbs like Croydon.
Mr Livingstone has already ordered a study into the feasibility of bike rentals for London.
The city seen an 83 per cent increase in cycling in the last seven years, but still just a tiny minority regularly travel by bike.
And the increase in riding has seen bike crime soar, prompting many victims of theft to give up cycling for good.
In Paris, the Velib scheme has proven to be a way of solving this problem, with several million rides since 10,000 bikes were first made available In July this year.
The bikes are available 24 hours a day, the first half hour ride is free, and a series of deterrents – including providing a credit card number, has prevented more than a handful of thefts.

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/80000-bikes-for-london-13326


80,000, on top of the half a million cycle journeys every day in London, that's a 17% increase if every one's used.

 

[domtyler]

I thought this scheme had been scrapped now under BJ?

 

[spindrift]

I thought this scheme had been scrapped now under BJ?

Boris has proven to be pro-car but no, it's going ahead, Hackney Council are asking for suggestions as to wherte to stick 'em.

Good news, I reckon. More numpty cyclists about thoughbut.

 

[biking_fox]

and a series of deterrents – including providing a credit card number, has prevented more than a handful of thefts.

How does this work? OK it stops someone hiring out a bike and never bringing it back, but it hardley prevents someone else nicking it - which is why people were giving up cycling to start with.

 

[spindrift]

I think it's a wheel lock like on Dutch bikes, plus they have to go back to another designated stand.

 

[redjedi]

Two wheels are firmly on the agenda for the UK capital, with mayor Ken Livingstone

Up to date information then.

Do they come with some sort of chain to secure it to a bike stand? A wheel lock alone won't stop someone knicking it

 

[Flyingfox]

If it is anything like the Parisian Velib, the bike stands register electroncally that you have put a bike back and you can only take one when you enter your details into the machine. They come with a small wire lock, but as you can only take them for 30 mins before paying for your hire, you may as well put the bike back in a stand (which are all over the city) if you go shopping or to a cafe, and then take another bike when you have finished, that way you travel for nothing all day. When you first get a bike out, you register with your credit/debit card, should the bike not be returned to a stand within 24 hours you will be charged €150. I use the system every time I go to Paris, and it's brilliant.

 

[spindrift]

TfL is asking inner-London boroughs to start identifying sites for cycle
>
> docking stations for the forthcoming Paris 'Velib'-style cycle hire
> scheme.
>
> LB Hackney has been asked to find eight or so locations in an
> approximately kilometre-square area of south Shoreditch.
>
> Space is tight in south Shoreditch. A concern with the scheme overall
> will be to avoid loss of current and potential general cycle parking
> sites, so I hope the highway authorities are prepared to bite the bullet
> and lose some motor vehicle parking to make way.
>
> One obvious place is Hoxton Square, and there is certainly excessive
> space devoted to motor vehicle parking there.
>
> Another spot that occurs to me is the north end of Clifton Street. This
> runs alongside Zetland House, a large 19th-century light industrial
> building in which banknotes used to be printed, and which now houses
> many small creative businesses, thanks to the owners' refusal to bow to
> developer pressures to convert it into yet more 'loft apartments'.
>
> Some of the hire stations will be located on TfL-controlled streets, and
> I can quite see one fitting into the wide footway buildout on the north
> side of Old Street to the east of the fire station.
>
> Any thoughts?

 

[another_dave_b]

Looks like the Velib may not be quite the all conquering winner its been painted. Quote below from the Telegraph:

Of the maximum fleet of 20,000 bikes (15,000 in winter), we learn that some 7,800 have been reported "disparus" - in other words, they have vanished into thin air, presumed stolen. A further 11,600 have been vandalised.

I wonder whether JC Decaux the company running the system would even be interested in taking on a similar scheme in the UK given the trouble they've been having with Vélib'. JCDecaux, which looks after the bikes in 1,250 ranks around Paris, says it can no longer afford to fit the repair and maintenance bill, and has pleaded with the mayor, Bertrand Delanoë to provide financial support - to no avail.

In exchange for running the scheme, Paris' town hall gave the company a ten-year licence to run 1,600 of the capital's billboards. But JCDecaux's boss has questioned whether the system can continue functioning, and this is before his company extends the scheme to the "banlieues" - Paris' suburbs, not all of which are models of civilisation given the amount of vandalism they endured in the 2005 riots.

 

[hackbike 666]

That's a shame,looks like the usual morons ruin it for everyone else.

 

[Brains]

I wouldhave thought the City/West End or a Univercity town would be the best place for a trial, not 'Ackney

 

[Origamist]

A different slant:

http://www.bikeradar.com/commuting/news/article/is-vlibs-provider-crying-wolf-20416