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More than 100,000 journeys made on London's hire bikes in first fortnight

Boris Johnson hails scheme's success as membership approaches 50,000...

Two weeks after its launch on 30 July, London’s Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme has already broken the 100,000-journey barrier as Mayor Boris Johnson hailed the success of the initiative, which he said had been enthusiastically welcomed by people living and working in the capital.

So far, 44,000 people - just over 1 in 200 of London's 7.5 million population, suggesting the initiative has ample room to grow -  have signed up to join the scheme, which is currently only open to people who have signed up through the Transport for London (TfL) website, but will be thrown open to the wider public shortly. On the busiest days, up to 14,000 trips have been made on the navy blue “Boris Bikes.”

Mr Johnson said: “Despite the soggy weather, tens of thousands of Londoners have been choosing Cycle Hire to get about – giving an emphatic thumbs up to the scheme. The Capital’s streets are now chiming to the sound of bicycle bells, and twinkling with the LED lights of our fantastic bikes.”

He continued: “These are the early days of the scheme, and we are still learning and improving the system. I appreciate Londoners’ patience and would ask everyone to bear with us. However it is now clear that, with 100,000 journeys already made, there is an indefatigable enthusiasm for cycling that is making Barclays Cycle Hire one of the city’s success stories.”

TfL added that a further 16 docking stations have been added since the scheme was launched, taking the total number in operation to 331.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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David French | 13 years ago
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I'm looking forward to trying the scheme next time I go to London. I live near Brighton and so due to Southern 'moronic' Trains I can't take my bike to London if I go there for a day trip (and want to get there in time to have an early morning visit to my favourite Soho coffee shop), so this scheme seems like it will be great.

2 things though:

1) Once the bikes have been absolutly shagged for 3 months or son in London, how many people will still want to go on them?

2) Do you get a lock so you can nip into a shop with out someone from Eastern Europe pinching it and taking it back to their home town in a Luton van?  3

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Simon_MacMichael | 13 years ago
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As road.cc follower Adam Tranter pointed out to us on Twitter, one of the scheme's teething problems is that all too often, docking stations are either full or empty, and there is a serious need to address distribution of the bikes.

That was clearly shown in the story we ran earlier this week on the graphic visualisation of how the scheme is being used based on TfL data, and we'll be contacting TfL to find out what steps they propose taking to address the issue.

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