Article: Cheaper to fly than hire a bike in Brisbane

[ozbob]

From the Courier Mail click here!

Cheaper to fly than hire a bike in Brisbane

Cheaper to fly than hire a bike in Brisbane
Article from: The Courier-Mail

By Alison Sandy

January 22, 2009 11:00pm

IT'S cheaper to hire a car, fly to Sydney or take a limousine to the Gold Coast than ride a bike all day as part of Brisbane's new cycle hire scheme.

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman came good on an election promise by awarding the contract to JCDecaux to provide 2000 bikes at 150 stations across the inner-city.

But despite claims it would be free, that only applies for the first half-hour and users will still be charged $20 to buy a helmet and up to $300 deposit. For an hour's hire it will be $2, for 11/2 hours $5.50 and up to $150 for more than 10 hours. Which means a person wanting to hire a bike for an entire day on a casual basis, once adding in the helmet fee and subscription fee ($10), will pay $180.

At yesterday's launch, Cr Newman denied he had misled voters. "What I said is we were endeavouring to introduce a scheme like in Paris," he said.

"I said we would try and get as close as possible to that and I'll just maintain, I was there at the announcement, I know what I said and that's exactly what we delivered."

It's the first scheme of its kind in Australia with stations to be located between St Lucia and Newstead.

The council signed a 20-year contract with JCDecaux and ratepayers will pay about $1.5 million over the next three years, but Cr Newman was unsure what the contribution would be each year after that.

"Over a 20-year life, it could potentially generate $9 million of revenue for council. So ultimately it won't cost the ratepayers of Brisbane," he said.

Cr Newman said he was confident the scheme would be successful and promised to use it himself and encourage his staff to do the same. "Let's just see how it goes over the coming months ... ultimately it's going to be very popular," he said.

JCDecaux, which has 16 cycle schemes across Europe, said bikes would be on Brisbane streets by the end of the year.

"It's a new system, using new technology, of course there's going to be glitches, but I think it's an overwhelming success," CEO Steve O'Connor said.

Bicycle Queensland manager Ben Wilson said the bike hire scheme was for short-term not all-day use. "And for that, it's very reasonably priced," he said.

Opposition Leader Shayne Sutton said Labor supported the scheme if it was implemented properly.

"The Lord Mayor needs to ensure there are safe, designated bikeways for cyclists to use," she said.

[curator49]

Time will tell if the large investment of ratepayers money for this project will have been money well spent. I somehow can't see a lot of take up of this rental scheme. Those who are already ardent cyclists will already have their own pushbikes.
The scary thing could be that people who have rarely ridden a bike (if at all) might give it a go. "Thats good as people will use a pushbike instead of their car" you might say. But I doubt people will hire these to come from say Wilston to the City. I do not think people already in the CBD use their car to go a few city blocks - best of all they probably walk. The pushbike rental scheme will just add to the already congested CBD. Tourists may give it a go but therein lies another problem in that they won't know where they are going and could find themselves the wrong way in a one-way street. I have seen incidents previously in the city where "experienced" cyclists are going the wrong way or are totally ignoring traffic lights.

I sincerely hope that there is not a significant increase of incidents involving bike/car collisions. One wonders how many pedestrians might come off second best if a collision with a rental pushbike occurs. Will you sue for injury?