In London one of the most exciting developments this year has been the long awaited launch of the bike hire scheme.
Despite its launch being associated with quite a number of problems – including a highly complex registration process, and a number of cyclists being overcharged – no one can deny that the scheme is proving incredibly popular. And let’s be realistic, no major scheme ever starts without at least some minor teething problems. Of course I will be chasing hard until these glitches are resolved, and they certainly must be, but the bottom line is that the bike hire scheme is a tremendous idea. Especially if the scheme is expanded it has the potential to help reduce congestion and pollution as well as making it easier for Londoners, visitors and tourists to get around the capital at very little cost. Most significantly it could play a vital role in transforming the status of cycling.
The scheme has quite rightly attracted a huge amount of media coverage. Unfortunately this coverage has also involved a long list of people queuing up to take credit for having proposed the scheme.
How Boris Johnson got his sums wrong
At the top of the queue is of course Boris Johnson. Although he can be surprisingly camera shy when it comes to defending fare rises or the fiasco of the delays over the tube upgrade programme, on this issue he simply can’t wait to get in front of a television camera. Some might think this is a bit surprising as his transport manifesto actually claimed the bike hire scheme would involve no public expenditure, when in reality the long standing contract will cost as much as £140 million.
Yet for Boris Johnson this is a minor detail and the only thing that really matters is that he takes sole credit for the scheme. Indeed speaking on Channel 4 News he used the opportunity to demolish the idea that his predecessor at City Hall should be associated with the scheme.
Of course Ken Livingstone also shows no signs of shyness and would like everyone to think that the bike hire scheme was actually his initiative. His campaign website claims that on 7 August 2007 he directed Transport for London to examine the feasibility of a cycle hire scheme – some nine months before the 2008 Mayor elections. He then had a media launch for his proposals in early 2008, just weeks before the 2008 Mayor elections.
Not far behind both Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone is the Green Party. As they were joined at the hip with Ken Livingstone before 2008 they like to take equal credit for everything that the last Mayor claims he initiated.
Lynne Featherstone got there first with bike hire proposals
Yet, if any politician should really take the credit for the scheme it must be Lynne Featherstone, my predecessor as the Liberal Democrat London Assembly transport spokesperson.
Way back in the Summer of 2001, just a year after Ken Livingstone had been elected as an independent Mayor of London, a detailed proposal for a bike hire scheme in London was put to the then Mayor by Lynne.
Ken Livingstone responded to Lynne, with the full details of his reply set out in a letter dated the 29 September 2001. Although he responded positively, he said the issue needed to be investigated further. Regrettably, in practice nothing happened for many years.
Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone should be honest with Londoners whenever they speak about the bike hire scheme.
As Ken Livingstone admitted way back in 2001 he was being lobbied to consider a scheme in London in his very first year of office. In practice it took more than six years for him to simply decide that he would finally give his full backing to a scheme. To now attack his successor over “delays and set-backs in delivering the scheme” shows a degree of cheek of the highest order.
As for Boris Johnson I suggest he spends far less time peddling the claim that he invented the idea of London’s bike hire scheme and instead sorts out the initial problems with the scheme. Having allocated £140 million to the scheme he must ensure that the 6000 bikes are constantly put to good use and that any expansion of the scheme targets areas that aren’t covered by the tube.
Surely, that is not too much to ask?
Caroline Pidgeon is leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group in City Hall and Vice Chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee.
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10 Comments
£140 million for the cycle scheme, that’s not accessible to anyone with a disability, when schemes to allow all to access the tube have been scrapped due to a lack of funds.
Now I’m a fan of cycling but this seems a steep price to pay for a Boris vanity project.
“got there first” not “got their first”.
Hmm. Seems like a bit of petty point scoring to me and hardly worthwhile fighting about from the perspective of a non-Londoner. Derbyshire has had cycle hire facilities since the 1970s; other UK and European cities have also had these for many years. So claiming Lynne Featherstone was first with the idea isn’t true either – maybe she just left London one day and found (shock horror!) that everything doesn’t originate in the Capital after all …
Tim
You are right there have certailnly been plenty of bike hire schemes, some going for many years. In fact there has already been at least one small scheme in London as well in the Shepherd Bush area, see:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23840506-boris-johnson-warned-bike-hire-scheme-will-be-overwhelmed-by-demand.do
Other UK towns and cities have had, or do have bike hire schemes as do many European cities – reading much of the UK media coverage in the last two weeks you would think that only Paris had a scheme and London was now following its example. Yes the London bike hire scheme launched on the 30th July is significant because of its size – 5000 bikes in operation, with a 1000 more ready to be used – but it most certainly is not a first.
Howevver, the article doesn’t in fact say that. It merely points out that both Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone are wrong to claim that they were the politicians that initiated the idea of a central London bike hire scheme. It also seems incredible that despite having the propsosal put to him in 2001 it took Ken Livingstone a full six years to actually do anything.
I’d just like to say that I live and work in central London and it has transformed how I get about. It is a fantastic scheme, and everyone involved deserves a slap on the back. I am seeing the bikes everywhere and it’s bringing new people (including me) out onto the roads, getting us cycling, getting us fitter.
All good points Caroline,
It is incredible for Ken Livingsstone to be making claims that the scheme has been delayed since he stopped being Mayor, stating
“Despite the delays and set-backs in delivering the scheme” on his website:
http://www.kenlivingstone.com/cycle-hire/
When he was responsible for totally dithering over 8 years. He could have ensured that a scheme was up and running 4 or 5 years ago.
It is reported that the system has suffered from a serious “software glitch”. What exactly is the nature of this “glitch”? Such things are generally reported as if they just happen, but they don’t – they mean mistakes were made in the programming and were not discovered in the testing before the system was released. I am sure there are plenty of people who have enough technical knowledge to be able to understand a more deatiled explanation, so come on – Caroline? – someone tell us in more detail than “software glitch”.
I have no confidence that this will be fixed, because the Oyster card sofwate is still in a seriously bug-ridden state, I have reported numerous problems my wife has experienced since getting one when Oyster pay-as-you go was introduced to south-east London, but the whole system – user interface design as well as operational action – still gives the impression it was put together by people who have no common sense, little logic, and are clueless about how how ordinary people work.
We are watching London Bike Share with great interest and it’s history should be worth a book very soon. In the meantime, we are going though a highly charged drama concerning Australia’s first attempt at Bike share
Melbourne, , has had a bike share scheme going for almost three months now with the dull name of; Melbourne Bike Share. London, Melbourne are both using Montreal’s Bixi bikes designed by Michael Dallaire and manufactured in rural Quebec, a great coup for the province.
MBS, for short, nothing like London in Size. It’s the same size as Dublinbike, give or take a bike or two, but whereas Dublin reports stunning usage figures, as does London in its early days, MBS limps along with about 70 rentals a day for the 400 bikes.
The reason, clear to everyone except those who run MBS, who press on in hope, is that you can’t legally ride a MBS without a helmet, and they are not, cannot be, supplied.
Everyone warned the RACV, the motoring group behind the bikes (suspicious?) that MBS could not work.
Now, much more is stake than the sad sight of docking stations full of unused bikes. (see film)
We have rightly seized upon this situation, to dramatize something which hitherto never got traction outside bike forums, and that is how our compulsory helmet law warps and stunts our cycle culture in toxic ways
Nobody cared before because the opinion setters in our cycle world all wear Lycra, love their helmets, and will tell you’d be mad to go even a yard on any bike in any situation without a helmet, so dire, so dangerous, (and inherently so) is cycling.
That sort of nonsense has ruled the roost till now. But as the excellent safety stats. come in from Dublin and Montreal, where for example, Bixis, the famous Montreal share bike, clocked up 3.5 million kms. with only five minor accidents in their 2009 season, some are saying that Emperor has no Lycra.
Hopefully, with the help of our pointing, and your interest, things will come to a head, and our very sensible suggestion that MBS bikes be exempted from compulsory helmets, at least on a trial basis, will be taken seriously.
At the moment, local denial has RACV spokespeople confidently predicting the opposite, that the rest of the world (that is 135 helmet free share bike schemes around the globe) will follow our lead, i.e. you’ll be forced to wear helmets on pain of fine, well before we budge an inch.
I guess if we don’t see signs of the tide turning pretty soon over your way, we’ll be sending over ambassadors of fear, grim skeletal figures with smashed helmets, to explain how satisfying it is to fear cycling.
More of this on my blog http://situp-cycle.com.
And here’s the key film; Melbourne Bike Share in Trouble?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vmYuKcvau8.
Mike Rubbo
Hmmm…..all sounds rather petty. I’m not sure anyone should be claiming ownership for the idea of a bike-hire scheme.
I wouldn’t argue that Boris is correct is saying he (at least in terms of providing the political capital) got it done.
Hundreds of major bicycle riding competitions are being sponsored by big health organizations throughout the whole world, with the chief goal of fund raising, frequently through the arrangement of pledges for participating bicyclists.