The Boris bikes are coming!
Transport for London (tfl) has announced that residents and visitors in London will be able to make use of thousands of hire bikes by summer, 2010.
Anyone aged 14 and over will be able to hire a bike from any of the proposed 400 docking stations, 24 hours a day, all year round. There is a sliding scale of fees based upon duration of hire with the first 30 minutes free. You won’t be able to pay on an Oyster Card.
Such schemes aren’t unique of course. The Paris Velib scheme was launched in 2007 and since then 8,000 bikes have been stolen and 18,000 have been damaged beyond repair. The sun baked city of Nice in the south of France also introduced a cycle hire scheme in 2009 (I’ve got some photos that I’ll post next week).
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