A new Smart bike scheme in Cardiff will start next month which will allow the public to hire and ride bikes throughout the city centre, Cathays and Cardiff Bay after a review of cycling in the city.
The bike scheme is due to be run in Cardiff as a commercial venture by OYBike and will start on September 22. Blocks of bikes will be stationed in and around the city centre and once a bike is finished with it can be returned to any of the available stands. There will be 75 bikes in 35 stands in all.
The review will also see one of Cardiff’s busiest streets, St Mary Street, become fully pedestrianised early next year.
Delme Bowen, the council's executive member for transport, said: "Cycling is at the heart of our sustainable travel scheme and we are committed to encouraging people to think about using bikes.
"With a series of major pedestrian improvements now underway we are working to ensure cyclists can be properly accommodated right across the city centre."
The bike hire scheme and pedestrianisation plan are two of many projects that form part of Cardiff’s £28.5 million Sustainable Travel City scheme, jointly funded by the Welsh Assembly and the Council, which aims to reduce congestion and encourage a shift to more sustainable travel by foot, bike and public transport.
The review follows the creation of Wales’s first £28.5m Sustainable Travel City schemea number of major new plans are gathering momentum in Cardiff and the council is beginning a review of city centre cycling.
An 18-month trial to allow cycling on Queen Street between 4pm-10am comes to an end on Tuesday and the council have said it will be reviewed following opposition from both South Wales Police and disabled groups in particular.
There has been a three per cent increase in the number of people commuting by car in Wales which gave fresh impetus to a Welsh Assembly Government push to end schemes inaccessible by foot or bike.
OYBike already runs bike hire operations in London, Cambridge, Reading, and Farnborough. You need to pre-register to use an OYBike and register £10 of credit to your account. Most journeys using the bikes are likely to be relatively short and the first 30 minutes of any journey is free - the next 30 cost £2 rising to £8 to hire a bike for the day.
Those Rene Herse tubes look like the Eclipse tubes from the valve design. I've already tried Eclipse tubes, and was not impressed. Higher failure...
They are ugly, and presumably require registration to use them. But the argument "it should be car parking instead" is absurd. Surely a camera and...
It's endemic now. Watched a skip lorry jump two reds within 100m on my commute this morning. No intention of stopping.
And if they park on the cycle lane, they're still impacting the flow of traffic. Different traffic - two-wheeled, human-powered traffic rather...
Reducing prices dramatically on stock you have paid full price for means making a loss, margins in the bike industry are slim. You can't increase...
I strugle to think other as cool bikes as this. If my city was flatter and I fitter, I would drool over it....
If RoadCC and similar specialist mass media organs were serious about being not just ethical about climate change factors but about the whole...
Hellish! Barely used, clearly dangerous, slowing competent cyclists down while pandering to the clueless, a serious threat to pedestrians, won't...
"I ran into the back of him because I was traumatised by seeing the latest petrol prices, m'lud"
Are you sure? Norway is socialist and has a very high quality of life.