Get on yer bike… Has London cracked it?
London’s Cycle Hire Scheme and Andrea’s experiences
Great isn’t it, this new cycle hire scheme in London. What a clever idea to encourage people off buses, out of cars and onto bikes. There’s the Velib in Paris, the Bixi in Montreal and the “Velov” in Lyon and the Barclays Cycle Hire in London. I bet they spent a lot of money coming up with that zippy name, £25 million in sponsorship.
When this scheme was first mooted I was genuinely excited. My bike has been gathering dust since a cycling holiday in the Netherlands a few years ago when I fractured my elbow. Ironically nothing to do with cycling, I tripped on builders rubble, while walking to a museum in broad daylight under the influence of nothing stronger than a glass of orange juice and some toast with those funny chocolate sprinkles the Dutch put on their breakfast toast… very odd but very nice. A fractured elbow is painful, cycling with one is even worse as you can imagine and I haven’t been on a bike since.
So this cycle hire scheme was just for me, pick up a bike, cycle into town, bus back. Bliss.
That’s the theory.
Four weeks and four keys later Barclays Cycle Scheme still haven’t managed to get my annual membership sorted out. As you can imagine with my job I spend a fair amount of time on the phone to different organisations organising different things, I’m now pretty good at getting done what needs to be done.
Barclays Cycle Scheme so far leaves me stumped. 9 long, tedious and repetitious phone calls and 3 emails later I still can’t use the scheme with the latest key.
On Friday night my other half took pity on me and lent me his key. Joy unbounded as finally I cycled into Covent Garden to go to the theatre (Deathtrap, by the way, with the excellent Simon Russell Beale – to be recommended despite weak last scene.)
Eighteen minutes and halo glowing we arrive.
Thirty five minutes later at the fourth docking station which Barclays says has a free space to park up the bike actually has a free space.
Surely this is not how it is supposed to be? Other users were having problems too; I wasn’t the only one cycling from one docking station to another trying to find somewhere to deposit a bike. At the last station I decided to wait it out for someone to take out a bike and that’s what finally worked…after 10 minutes.
Part of me still thinks the scheme is a good idea but until I get a key that works and until I am confident that the technology functions so there will be a space free when TFL’s online information says there is (especially when I am standing at said docking station), I will be asking for my money back and sticking with buses.
How have you found it?
