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Edinburgh Cycle Hire Scheme

(1600 posts)
  • Started 7 years ago by Harts Cyclery
  • Latest reply from bakky

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  1. Edinburgh Cycle Training
    Member

    Its a one-way street for this cafe owner I think

    He was verbally aggressive to me once for suggesting £20 was a tad steep for 3 bacon rolls with coffee, albeit a very tasty bacon roll.

    He demands buses are re-routed, bins a re-painted, racks are installed, all at no cost to himself, with his only concern being the community, not the improvements to his business.

    I suspect that some of the land he uses for tables/chairs is public land, not his, yet his business benefits greatly from being tripled in size!

    Posted 6 years ago #

  2. gembo
    Member

    Apple pie in Carnwath about £10 for decent coffee and bacon butties times three.

    It is about half price of anywhere else and also in Carnwath

    Agreed the seats encroach beyond the boundary but in a sense the boardwalk is his world.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  3. Edinburgh Cycle Training
    Member

    I have no truck with his business. His cafe is lovely. Its food i lovely. I have no gripe with him using a bit of public space for extra customer seating.

    I do think he needs to respect the fact that he DOES benefit from the (probably discounted) rates bill he pays.

    He provides a good service to well paying customers, but he doesn't provide a public service at all. Try using his WC's without having ordered anything first...

    Posted 6 years ago #

  4. Nelly
    Member

    "Mr Tait said a social media reach of his business of ten million means folk are coming to the promenade from all over the country"

    Ten million - doesnt sound in any way inflated or smell like bovine effluent.

    I imagine thats what his website designer told him, just prior to hitting him with an inflated bill.

    Back on the main topic, he complains that there are no racks outside the cafe - perhaps a fair point, but if he were being a wee bit altruistic he could just buy them and install them himself..........unless, as @Edinburgh Cycle Training has suggested - he doesnt own the land !

    Posted 6 years ago #

  5. threefromleith
    Member

    He could do racks on the cheap, and get someone to make him one like every little cafe & bar in Slovenia seems to - take a very large log (more likely a section of tree trunk) and cut a row of wheel-width slots in it (eg https://goo.gl/maps/3Wq62TNG7go)

    If you don't like that, a simple wooden or metal pole held between two A-frames or similar allows lots of bikes to be parked, held up by the nose of the saddle: https://goo.gl/maps/3Wq62TNG7go

    Fair enough, you can't lock the bike to them - but if you're sitting outside you can keep your eye on them!

    Posted 6 years ago #

  6. PS
    Member

    Going back to the burgh bikes... Surely the virtual docks don't cost £3k to install? Although such a remote location may increase the risk of any unsecured bike ending up in the Forth.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  7. gembo
    Member

    The council will probably put racks in for him given all the hullabaloo he makes / publicity he creates for his business. This story is about him objecting to paying for docking stations for Just Eat bikes. Just eAt arguing that in low density areas given the scheme is to be cost neutral then they will ask people to contribute. For example if JK was into cycling rather than horses then she might stump up for a docking station for him etc. But as has been pointed out there is a good chance he is renting the building. If this is the case wait for an almighty fuss when the lease is up. Council might have to go to tendering......

    A similar thing happened at Glentress when the person who built up the cafe business lost it when the lease was up.

    In a classic example of capitalism eating itself, you as the tenant take a loss making toilet with an urn and polystyrene cups and build it into a groovy Bondi Beach style eaterie which the landlord then points out is worth much more now and therefore seek a higher rent.

    Let us hope he bought the building outright or he has a very long lease or his lawyers were on the ball with the contract.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  8. wingpig
    Member

    @threefromleith There's a café/farm shop thing just beyond Blair Drummond which has three bike-logs with wee bolted-on eyelet things for rudimentary locking.

    @PS Wonder if they're factoring in a year's worth of maintenance/bikeshuffling visits.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  9. sallyhinch
    Member

    @Gembo same thing happened at Ae and Mabie. Ae (I think) now back to the original owners after the new ones brought in at a higher rent couldn't make it pay (it also has the log-slot bike rack arrangement). No cafe or bike hire now at Mabie, and the buildings there are now for sale

    Posted 6 years ago #

  10. Stickman
    Member

    Fair play to the cafe owner for building a business, it he is very good at publicity grabbing: remember his demands that an arena be built at the waterfront next to his cafe?

    To be honest I’d rather they concentrated on expanding outwards from the City Centre as quickly as possible to build the network rather than worry about individual isolated docks at the moment.

    Progress on that front is disappointing - I’ve got a an annual pass but I’ve not used a hire bike since launch day.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  11. jdanielp
    Member

    Just spotted that 4000 trips have now been recorded and 8 people are riding right now, which I think is the highest I have seen: https://edinburghcyclehire.com/stations/live

    Presuambly, even with the seats at the lowest point, these bikes aren't suitable for anyone below a certain height? I am thinking mostly about children - do any comparable bike hire services provide smaller bikes and/or child carrying capacity so that families can make use of their service?

    Posted 6 years ago #

  12. PS
    Member

    To be honest I’d rather they concentrated on expanding outwards from the City Centre as quickly as possible to build the network rather than worry about individual isolated docks at the moment.

    Agreed. Expansion and infilling of gaps of more than 5 mins' walk between docking stations should be the priority.

    Also, I'm not sure how keen I would be cycle all the way out to Cramond, dock my bike and then watch someone else hire the bike and pedal off, leaving me with no bike to hire to get back into town. That's a long walk.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  13. Frenchy
    Member

    I think they all have an age limit anyway (either 16 or 18).

    EDIT: Although that's not stopping some folk in Washington DC: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/05/30/finally-a-kids-seat-for-bike-share/

    And Paris' scheme apparently has some children's bikes: http://time.com/2902001/paris-bike-share/ Very expensive, though, perhaps due to higher insurance costs?

    Posted 6 years ago #

  14. Stickman
    Member

    New form for submitting docking station requests:

    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSft70Zbl-4Z5-gszn9BReuPcxxTl2NQCDkoNU5UjvCxRzupaA/viewform

    Posted 6 years ago #

  15. Morningsider
    Member

    Given that the scheme was trailed for months and there are plans to have 1000 bikes (rising from an initial 200) by the end of the year, progress in rolling out new docking stations is really poor. Two geo-docks, with a total holding capacity of 31 bikes, in one month. At that rate it would take 29 months to reach 1000 bikes.

    Excluding launch day, trip rates are running at an average of less than 100 per day. The lack of docking stations must be a factor in this. Unless the roll-out is ramped up significantly, I think the scheme could fail as so few people see it as a viable alternative to other travel options.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  16. Klaxon
    Member

    The initial 200 was more like 140, as well.

    Something’s not right. The hire pause (Greggs button) ‘within weeks’ is still not enabled. Docks still can’t overflow (‘within a couple months’) to cope with exceptional demand. And as noted, there’s been a grand total of 2 points added when it needed to be 1.5 a day.

    There’s been a hire point (1 out of 4) at Waverley Court out of action for over a week. No repair. This is already the smallest dock and 3 is uselessly tiny. Twitter just gets you a ‘thanks for reporting’ or ‘thanks for suggesting’ a dock.

    I’d be much more convinced Serco were competently managing the scheme if they would publish an installation map, a weekly install schedule (it will exist - they need to book crews), more proactively remove faulty bikes from docks (they can sit for days), and repair docks (as above, can sit for a week)

    Posted 6 years ago #

  17. Klaxon
    Member

    I understand unlimited overflow wouldn’t be healthy for balance, so I’d propose a compromise, when you hire a bike, available spaces are locked in. So if you leave and there’s a space at the commie, you’re guaranteed to be able to leave your bike at the commie. If you ride anyway without space, it’s on your back when you get there if one has freed up.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  18. PS
    Member

    Something’s not right. The hire pause (Greggs button) ‘within weeks’ is still not enabled. Docks still can’t overflow (‘within a couple months’) to cope with exceptional demand.

    TBF, it launched on 17 Sept so we're arguably still inside the timescale of "within weeks" and certainly "within a couple of months".

    Posted 6 years ago #

  19. Klaxon
    Member

    I hope I’m overly antsy. They said on Twitter that more docks are going in this week.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  20. Stickman
    Member

    https://drscottarthur.scot/2018/10/16/ediburghs-bike-hire-scheme-is-a-bit-of-joined-up-thinking-needed/

    Posted 6 years ago #

  21. gembo
    Member

    The company have done the Glasgow scheme so hopefully can make sense of the data coming in.?

    The cafe guy was not quite asked to pay the full three grand I think? But that just makes a better story? He was told that was the cost to Just Eat, but if he wanted it all to himself, or if he had JK chipping in etc.then costs would depend? Is my take anyway

    Scott needs to put that saddle up.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  22. Morningsider
    Member

    On-street docking stations don't need planning permission. They are classed as permitted development under Class 30 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992, as amended. This allows for the installation of "street furniture required in connection with the operation of any public service administered by them" [a local authority], without the need for planning permission.

    Having had a quick swatch at the Council's planning portal, it seems clear that Serco already know this. As the Council confirmed it in correspondence on the Lauriston Place docking station (Ref: 18/03565/CLP). The docking stations on university ground also qualify as permitted development, under different grounds.

    Whatever the hold-up is, it isn't the fault of the planning system.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  23. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    The relative lack of usage is concerning, particularly as the evidence from other cities is that, ceteris paribus, usage will fall over the winter months. Both Glasgow and Belfast quickly spun up to 10000+ monthly hires. Both wisely launched in April/May.

    These other cities appear to have gone for a bigger bang approach to launch - 'official' opening stats below:

    Glasgow: 400 bikes, 31 stations
    Belfast: 300 bikes, 30 stations
    Edinburgh: 200 bikes (but maybe really 140?), current 25 stations (and I wouldn't count the 4 Kings Buildings docks as being functionally 4 independent stations...)

    There are some bizarre things about it e.g. for me edinburghcyclehire.com first appears on page 3 of a Google search for "Edinburgh bike hire"

    Posted 6 years ago #

  24. toomanybikes
    Member

    I can't help but think the storms have hindered uptake too. They rolled in immediately after launch, whilst hype was building so may have put people off of potentially inspirational test rides.

    More docks, more time and spring will hopefully turn things around.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  25. chrisfl
    Member

    I also hope that they are thinking a bit more strategically that asking people for suggestions... Strikes me that there are some obvious routes that need to be filled in.

    Leith Walk clearly needs to several hire points, heading out to join up with the lone Leith hire point.

    Once that's done, then the Portobello dock is very lonely, so that triangle needs to be filled with docks.

    Personally, I would love to see then extend out along the canal, obvious spots for hiring next to the new Boroughmuir School and University Housing, and Fountain Park, then either end of Harrison Park, Meggetland, I'm not sure where I would then put stations, but possibly at or near the other parks, but certainly near the Hi-rises, Westside Plaza and the WHEC - joining up with a bunch of stations around Edinburgh Park and the Gyle.

    Also as others have pointed out Lothin Road, Haymarket and Dalry/Gorgie could very easily be linked into the city center, and this applies to just about the whole city.

    If there are around 150 bikes out at the moment betweeen 25 stations, that's 6 bikes per stations, If the target is 1000 bikes at that ratio that's 160 stations, which significantly increases the area covered...

    Posted 6 years ago #

  26. Harts Cyclery
    Member

    The lack of docks for the Napier Merchiston campus and Bruntsfield/Meadows/Marchmont area needs sorting quickly. You'd get loads of users from those areas immediately. Then a steady spread to the west to get to at least Murrayfield quickly would be useful. Also needs to get to Morningside sooner rather than later.

    Posted 6 years ago #

  27. Frenchy
    Member

    Dock installed today at Leith Links: https://twitter.com/adamrmcvey/status/1052533010023641088

    Posted 6 years ago #

  28. Klaxon
    Member

    37 spaces, wow

    Posted 6 years ago #

  29. threefromleith
    Member

    We need one down at the Shore. Perhaps the council can replace the missing bollards on Coalhill* to excude the cars that shouldn't be there and install a rack instead?

    *Been trying to get them to do this for many years; even had Chas Booth fighting for it too. Council just turn a deaf ear again and again. There's only one of the original 3 or 4 bollards left that kept the street traffic free and a through route for pedestrians and cyclists - the rest were removed by aggrieved drivists and thrown in the Water of Leith. The drop kerb and bollards are still there at the Sandport Bridge end though!

    Posted 6 years ago #

  30. chdot
    Admin

    Sponsor news -

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45888709

    Posted 6 years ago #

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