CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
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I was down Leith Walk at the weekend and noticed that the cycle hire point at Dalmeny Street had had its docking station installed.
It has now reappeared on the map, so presumably it has now reopened (if so, hurrah)?
Any sign of any of the other sites to be upgraded having reappeared yet?
(I see that the St Andrew's House station, which was closed for a while, has also reappeared on the map again.)
Noticed this morning that they seem to have removed one of the racks in the Kirkgate, so there are now far fewer bikes available there.
More and smaller sites are better than fewer mega-docks, in my opinion.
(I'm guessing that maybe the Dalmeny Street dock has been resited from Foot of the Walk in this case (here was me hoping they had started to buy new ones and so the other sites might also start to be being upgraded soon)? If usage shows demand for more, an additional dock in the Kirkgate shopping centre square (eg, outside Lidl) might be a better addition.)
I'd much rather have 8 bikes every 5 - 7 minutes' walk apart, instead of less convenient mega-docks further away (which also require much more space to install them). If you have to walk too far to get to or from a dock, the bus starts to look a more tempting option.
There are also really ridiculously long and double-sided docks such as Bristo Square which are so long that invariably the bike it decides to release is on the opposite side to where you are standing and involves a "short" walk around the wall of docks just to get to it!
It would be better to have 4 docks of 10 bikes in various locations (why not some directly outside Teviot House itself, for example) than one huge dock that is a bit of an obstacle in itself. At the very least, huge double-sided docks should be split into multiple parts so that you can more easily walk on through the other side.
Looks some new docks are popping up! Grassmarket and Hunter Square so far.
It's been a while since the great cull of virtual docks, you'd think the one that were being replaced would be up by now.
Yesterday, while sitting upstairs on a crowded bus in insane heat, I would've much rather whizzed to Little France on a hire bike but alas still no dock.
Burger Biked to work this morning. After I set off, the bike made a beeping noise to alert me, and the app told me the lock had not fully disengaged. A useful feature!
There's a dock here in what I'd call Little France?
Not active any more.
Yay vandalism.
Oh. I dumped a bike I found abandoned there. E-mailed them and the guy said he didn't know the Little France dock.
So I in fact re-dumped the bike.
It may well accept bikes, but I don't think someone else would be able to take it out again.
Fairly sensible place to "re-dump" one, anyway.
Are there more bikes available in the network? The docks along the A8 have all had more than usual.
@Stickman Yeah, there's around 330 in the system at the moment.
Seems Bruntsfield Links is the latest dock to be removed due to vandalism.
@CycleAlex: Has the Bruntsfield Links dock been removed? It is still showing as present on the map.
It's one of the docks I use quite frequently, as it is awkward to get to Bruntsfield from the east or southeast by bus, so that would be quite annoying!
(They did put that dock in a bit of an unwise/unsafe location, though: on the park side of a rather creepy public toilet where it is very dark in the evenings. It would have been more sensible to site that dock next to the pavement on Bruntsfield Place: better for personal safety, and better oversight from passers-by to help prevent vandalism (This is elementary "safe urban design" stuff!))
Brunswick St dock turned 45 degrees and downgraded from 13 to 10 spaces
Edinburgh Cycle Hire tweeted earlier today to highlight how city bikes are an ideal way to get around for the festivals (indeed, yeayy):
https://twitter.com/cyclehire_edi/status/1156489677165252615
...so I have teased them about how it could be even better if they added more docking stations next to some venues which are poorly served and if they could scale up the number of bikes available to at least try to meet the potential likely demand.
Perhaps the best opportunity of the year that they have to really shine (especially with key Fringe areas such as Cowgate being car-free), and I fear that they will sadly squander it. :-(
Please join in the discussion if you can...
@davecykl Looks like they've brought it back as a temp virtual dock while they look for a new location https://twitter.com/cyclehire_edi/status/1156303486864306177
Seems like the Newkirkgate dock has been shifted to the top of Constitution Street (weird). Dundee Street has also been 'upgraded' to a physical dock - it was a tad messy before.
Went around town with a friend yesterday on the bikes and it's just depressing how many spaces are vandalised. Either missing entirely or with the locking mechanism ripped out.
Spotted the Dundee Street dock upgraded from a mat to a stand.
The removal of the Foot of the Walk dock is utterly bizarre. Most popular one in the scheme wasn’t it?
This constant bait and switch can’t be doing them any good. Who’d pay £90 to have their service removed at the drop of a hat?
Most popular last month with near enough 1000 trips! Disappointing to say the least.
Although it's getting busier they don't exactly have customers to lose...
A couple of new stations:
Pleasance at Drummond Street (Not the best sited location, in my opinion: few will want (or even manage, on a heavy 3-speed!) to cycle up that steep part of the Pleasance, and Drummond Street is also steep, and cobbled, to boot. The junction of the Pleasance and East Adam Street or New Arthur Place would seem more sensible, as you can get to those much more easily via flatter streets.)
And for the very ambitious, at the Royal Highland Centre, described as a festival campsite. With the poor quality of the cycle route alongside the A8, I can't really see that one being very popular. I think they maybe need to walk before they run, but maybe the CCE data-crunchers might prove me wrong?
Drummond St should see immediate popularity from students going to use the uni gym, coming from the south.
Maybe, but I'm not sure if many people would leave from the Drummond Street dock again afterwards, given how steep uphill it is both south or west!
The alternative locations that I suggested would be only about 50 - 100 m further south but would be on a more level part of the Pleasance.
Wouldn’t the Royal Highland Centre be good for airport jaunts? Perhaps they wanted one on the airport but couldn’t, because of officious twerps, privately owned land & OMG terrorists... you can’t possibly bring monstrosities like that here, people might blow them up...
I can see the Royal Highland Centre working with a pair station at the tram stop. Not sure about cycling into town from there...
Just noticed we're nearly at 400 bikes now! Hopefully keeps climbing as there should be a big increase in docks over the next month.
Since I've now got some free time I've been making some improvements to https://publictransport.io/cyclehire/ with a better map and a graph that can actually be read when you go back a few months.
Let me know if there's some interesting data I could add/how I can make it less terrible.
My respect goes to the people who have cycled to Cramond, Morningside and Bristo Square from the dock at the airport!
Curious. Newkirkgate appears to have been a one of the busier docks. I wonder why they got rid of it.
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