… Velorution will.
Jack Thurston, best radio cycling commentator in town, has a detailed report of the state of play of Vel-on, the proposed London Cycle Hire Scheme, projected to start in May 2010.
The major organisational issue at the moment is deciding where to place the docking stations, planned to be only a few hundred metres apart. We were amused to read:
TfL has done some survey work to assess demand for the scheme and found that by far the greatest demand was among ‘after-rail commuters’. This is TfL jargon for people who have come in to London on the train but still need to continue their journey to their final destination, by foot, tube, bus or taxi. TfL predicts that demand for the hire cycles around the mainline rail stations would be enormous and is therefore not propsing to locate docking stations within station concourses or the immediate vicinity.
Don’t you love public entreprise? Not to worry: We are planning to expand our Rent-a-Folder service. Well before Vel-on’s launch, you will be able to get off the Eurostar at Saint-Pancras and hire a funky coloured Brompton (booked on line and waiting for you at the station), equipped with Sat-Nav that will guide you to your six business meetings or the ten art galleries you intend to visit.
Polo pictures from Intersection magazine
They are “not proposing” to put them where they will be most used ? Just amazing…
We have a difference scheme over here specifically for this: the OV-Fiets. These are bicycles specifically intended for use by after rail commuters (OV == Openbaar Vervoer == Public Transport). You can rent them for up to 23 hours, but no longer. They are available at most railway stations in the Netherlands, in addition to the normal hire bikes which you can hire for as long as you want. The other thing provided is quite a lot of secure cycle parking at the stations so that you can leave a bike safely at your destination for the second half of your commute.
How very English: put the bikes where no-one wants them, so that no-one uses them (…and you can then shut the service down after a couple of years on the grounds that no-one uses it ,QED).
I first encountered this in 1976 when I was working as a draughtsman on a remote building site in the Thames valley near Marlow. My usual morning lift was taking a fortnight's holiday, so I put my bike on the train to Maidenhead in order to ride the five miles or so onwards to work. Coming back to the station that evening I asked where I could leave my bike overnight since it cost a half-fare to carry one by train in those days and I didn't want to shell that much out each day. The station master looked at me as if I had just made an indecent proposal to him and said “Couldn't possibly do that sir: if we let you leave your bicycle here overnight we'd have everyone wanting to do it…”
No wonder the Dutch and other continentals think the English are rather strange. The attitude to them in Holland, I found, is that people regard them as a dysfunctional tribe of relatives addicted to drink and domestic violence: entertaining perhaps to visit from time to time in order to laugh afterwards about their uncouth behaviour, the grubby curtains and the dogs piddling in the corners, but definitely not the sort of people you'd ever wish to spend a weekend with.
In the UK “public enterprise” is an oxymoron.
The absurdity of not providing docking stations at the railway stations is that it is going to frustrate many potential non-commuters who want to ride to a railway station. Say you need to catch the 16:00 to Manchester from Euston; there is a docking station around the corner from your office and you don't particularly want to leave your bicycle in that makeshift arrangement Network Rail calls bicycle parking. The Vel-On would be ideal, except though you are going to miss the train because there is nowhere to return the bicycle near the station.