CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Good newsish
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#EdinWebCast #BikeHire future
All parties agree...
a. Bike hire very important to the city
b. But costly, so decisions postponed to Council budget process
c. Strong support for the deputations (tweets above)
Unanimous decision:
officers to continue investigations & await budget
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https://twitter.com/spokeslothian/status/1621115951491207168
Don’t actually understand this, SNP doesn’t control CEC.
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The cycle hire scheme wasn't perfect - but it is much missed. @EdinburghSNP aren't giving up on a replacement & will ringfence funds in our budget later this month.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/dastonsnp/status/1621240292723642368?
Don’t actually understand this, SNP doesn’t control CEC.
All parties prepare and propose a budget - only one will actually be approved (likely with amendments). I think it's very similar to "normal" council motions.
Ok but “ringfence funds” and “our budget” seem, um, ‘misleading’…?
I'd still maintain that a much smaller start, with some local & targetted use could be started in SE wedge with SESTRAN Go E-Bikes and other locations grown around the city
You are not alone!
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Interesting to hear Cllr talk about choosing what the cycle hire should be? It is all those things not one! Also bizarre why no discussion of extending the @SEStran scheme in E Lothian & Midlothian @Goebikeshare into Edinburgh… one we all already pay for?
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https://mobile.twitter.com/johnrobson87/status/1621630473913991168
Was on Finance committee agenda yesterday recommended ‘spend money on other things’.
Don’t know how it was discussed, or if an option of extending the SEStran scheme was mentioned.
Today -
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Decisions will be taken at the councils budget meeting
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https://mobile.twitter.com/PhilipDoggart/status/1623270812894564352
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Looking at the footprint of the signal coverage for GoEbike scheme you could already have bike hire operating as delivered by @HiBikeInverness for #RaigmoreHospital to serve #ERI with bikes at #ShawfairStation & #Sheriffhall (already at #Eskbank)
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https://mobile.twitter.com/bccletts/status/1623605276124250112
Thread
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The successful Lib Dem proposals also include a council tax rise of five per cent, less than the 5.75 per cent proposed by Labour; rejecting £5m of education cuts proposed by council officials; an extra £11m for road and pavement maintenance; £3m for improvements to parks and greenspaces; an extra £2m for flood prevention; and £3m towards the refurbishment of the King’s Theatre. But there is no money to fund the continuation of free tram fares for under-22s or bring back a cycle hire scheme.
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Awful news, I though this was working well in Dundee:
All staff made redundant as Dundee bike company collapses
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https://mobile.twitter.com/cllrscottarthur/status/1629451778004484096?
So what next?
https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-13-july-2023-302511#live-blog-item-47351
"Click-clack of anti-capitalism" or "free-range bikes": Are teens "borrowing" locked Lime bikes pushing London to Dutch levels of cycling?
Both the Spanish (Ride-On in Dundee (core funded by Embark branding) & Leicester (core funded by Santander) clsed as the Spaniahs company retrenched to focus on their National operation
Bewegen has also pulled out of UK (Hibikes Inverness/Fort William, to be taken over by Hitrans, & probably keep same local operational contractors. Forth Valley bikes ran in parallel with TIER (Nextbike) and also managed by Recyck-a-Bike in Stirling, so likely to merge with Nextbike operation. Go-Ebike (SESTRAN) seems to have no such pragmatic or practical options being proposed - a shame as this had geofencing that embraced the ERI, Newcraighall Station & P&R, & Shawfair Station & P&R
I think (as I suggested earlier) that a smaller scale series of local clusters that have the long term view of integrating into a city-wide scheme would be the way forward, and essentially a reprise of the 1995 Copenhagen City Bikes (very basic - ran for 19 years before new technology came in) & the 1996 Portsmouth/Rotterdam automated schemes as part of the EU CIVITAS/VIVALDI smartcard Mobility services project - now better known as MaaS, and using phone apps
Local operation & fleet maintenance should be a local operation, possible with YOI/Prisoner rehabilitation and training for offenders and young people, with more practical than academic ability (C&G level 1 technician - as the Army advert says, if you can fix a bike you can fix a tank) 8-0% of the CPH team were trained on bikes & then went on to further related employment. One possible advantage of working with certain groups is that a certain 'informal policing' regime may control abuse of the system
With the Easedale empire now extending to MxGills Scotland East I'd love to brief them on being a Mobility provider across the whole spectrum - they already have bus operations, the Flixbus coach contract, and a taxi app....
Alternatively Brompton Hire on long term lease works out at £1.50/day for a fully serviced bike, or an 8-locker hire point can support up to 30 bikes (c.400%) on hire and normally requires no mains power or hard wired comms connection. 4 units already operating in Stornoway, Oban, Inverness & Elgin. As the level of hires moves up to the 80-90% for a unit the economics turn the corner
For city bikes the rate for bike branding was roughly 40 bikes for the cost of a single 6-sheet illuminated bus stop poster which usually covers the base level of maintaining the fleet
Perhaps someone might ask me how this can be delivered, as I worked on Portsmouth, OyBike (2004-2009 in London), the early Brompton Hire (2009 onwards)& tracked the developments (and disasters) for Clear Channel JC Decaux, Call a Bike, Nextbike, Hourbike, and others, and do know a fair bit about public bike hire - right back to Luud Schimmelpennick & Witfiets in 1960's
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Edinburgh tourist tax could be used to fund return of cycle hire scheme
The council leader said the reintroduction of hike bikes would be 'on his list' of improvements the tourist tax could finance.
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https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/edinburgh-tourist-tax-could-used-27533868
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A 'pioneering' scheme has been launched in Glasgow with a view to transforming access to bikes, e-bikes and e-Cargo bikes.
SWITCH UP has officially rolled out in the city, providing locals with access to bicycles, comprehensive on-road cycling training, theft insurance, maintenance service and 48-hour mobile repairs for a single monthly fee.
The new service is the first of its kind in Scotland and will provide access to bicycles to low-income individuals, allocating part of its total fleet to those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds
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https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/23723892.glasgow-set-first-city-exciting-pioneering-bike-scheme/
Urgh - the standard and e-bikes offered by this scheme look pretty nasty. According to the Switch-Up Terms and Conditions they are the Raleigh Pioneer (retail price currently £249) and Raleigh Array e-bike (retail price £1,199).
I don't think £24 a month for the Pioneer and £59 for the Array really represents great value for money, especially when an annual Nextbike pass is £78, which gives you unlimited half-hour rides.
Add to this the requirement to keep your bike securely stored inside overnight and I am wondering who this scheme will really appeal to.
More window dressing from Transport Scotland.
Bike for Good are behind Switch-Up. They're like Edinburgh's Bike Station so are good on the ground often at events in city. Based in the Finnieston area which is decent location.
As @Morningsider says it's not likely to be 'the answer' as a general access scheme with limited number of bikes - and ones which will need more maintenance.
Site mentions that BfG sells used bikes so possibly seen as a supplement to that, accessing more potential cyclists/customers.
I think the trend towards MaaS for bikes has merit, especially for the people who are able to afford 'a bike' easily enough but for whom an Urban Arrow (or Babboe City Mountain...) is a luxury entirely beyond one's means, monthly payments and interest-free loans or not.
For those who can, the e-cargo bike at £99/month would give up to four years' worth of continuous hire compared with buying, and you get a 48 hour maximum response to mechanicals. But as with all hires and the like, you can pay all that money and eventually have nothing to resell later to part-fund another. Except, that's not what MaaS is about: MaaS enables point-of-use short termism to help you make a certain type of journey somewhat irregularly or infrequently.
So thinking about the likely demographic again, £99 a month is a lot, it could be four times what someone pays for broadband. Electric cargo bikes (especially) are expensive things, and there's not much getting around that in order to not turn off your emerging market through poor quality bikes. Morningsider's point about the rates for the generic 'a bike' is right though: that's a lot to pay per month when other hire bikes are much better value - except I suppose that in this case you can keep the bike with you for the duration and don't need to return it to a dock each time, however many times you're allowed to do that.
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As part of this, a questionnaire regarding the availability of non standard bikes and ebikes for public hire was sent to 32 Local Authorities; to gather information to inform the advice MACS give to Scottish Ministers and TS. This information will also inform our discussion with wider stakeholders and had been requested as a result of concerns that have been raised with us by the disabled community in Scotland. They feel there is a lack of affordable opportunities to hire bikes and ebikes through onstreet hire schemes, including those cited at transport termini, near greenspaces and tourist attractions. We will look to publish the results of this piece of work later this year.
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#EdinWebCast
@CllrScottArthur motion promises Jan report on
#BikeHire & #CarClub
Also reducing impact of #congestion on bus delays
[@scotgov could help by
1. allowing bus cameras to enforce illegal #buslane parking
2. updating #TrafficOrder rules so 24-hr lanes easier to create]
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https://twitter.com/spokeslothian/status/1702330609266499882
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Talks to reintroduce a bike hire scheme in Edinburgh are underway with the transport convener saying it could be rolled out in 2025
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2025!? What could possibly take so long?
Can I just reiterate a point I have made many times. The main reason behind the failure of the previous scheme was the Council wanting to run a successful hire scheme at no cost to itself. The ropey docks, poor management and sometimes flaky app were largely down to scrimping on the budget.
Cllr Arthur is making much of Lime being able to provide a service at no cost to the Council. Lime and Dott are pretty slick operators (with hire costs to match), but they will walk away if here is no money to be made - the same as Serco. I can well see a second private sector hire scheme going the same way as the first.
What I don't get about the Interim Convener is he's usually very keen to find reasons to berate the Scottish Government for not providing him with enough money to fulfill his grand ambitions, but with this issue where we have IMO a textbook case of where the Scottish Government *should* be stepping in to put together and fund a *national* cycle hire scheme that ties in to the railways like the Dutch have, I don't recall a single peep about it.
2025!? What could possibly take so long?
We need a 12-week consultation with some interference from uninformed locals, local councillors and the right-wing nut jobs on Facebook. Then we need to wait 2 cycles to discuss it in a meeting (TEC). Then we need to run the 12-week consultation again because we discovered the previous one was incompetent. Then we have to re-apply for funds because the ad-hoc funding system means the original funds have expired or been squirrelled away elsewhere. Then we need to get the bikes, only to discover there's a worldwide shortage of yellow paint so we can't install any docks...
Did I miss anything?
ah @neddie - you old...erm, realist!
Tiresome bore, I think you'll find ;-)
I suspect it's because if they're going for docking systems rather than dockless (and I really hope they are) they'll need to reallocate parking spaces as docking spaces which means a big exercise to identify which spaces to remove and then going through the full TRO process for them. So yes... consultation causing delays.
Yes/no/maybe
Does Lime do “docks”?
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Some London Boroughs require Lime e-bikes to be parked in what's called "mandatory parking areas". That means in Camden, City of London, Hackney, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster, you must leave your e-bike in designated parking bays. If you’re Liming to one of these Boroughs, you can find these parking bays marked in-app on our map with a P.
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@pringlis - Lime and Dott are both dockless system operators. No operator is going to introduce a docked hire system without taxpayer support as it simply will not make them any money, so I reckon we can rule that out.
Edinburgh Council could designate geo-fenced e-bike parking places across the city without the need for any permission, just as it did for the just eat hire scheme. Although they probably couldn't be located in a carriageway.
Even if the Council wanted on-road spaces, the shouldn't take years. It took Kensington and Chelsea Council just over a year to propose, consult on and create 124 geo-fenced parking bays for dockless e-bikes. (see https://consult.rbkc.gov.uk/communities/e-bike-parking/)
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