Shared Bikes – Way to go Brisbane

Brisbane is the one of two Australian cities with a bike sharing scheme. It is the newest in Australia and the biggest regarding the total number of bikes with 1000 operating and 1000 more soon to be offered. The bicycles in CityCycle look a lot like those of Velib in Paris where the bike sharing scheme is a huge success with more than 20000 bikes on Parisian roads. CityCycle bikes can be found in 104 (soon to become 150) stations in the city centre and the surrounding neighbourhoods. In order to use CityCycle you need to subscribe and then you can ride for free for a period of 30 minutes. As long as the bikes are returned to a station within half-hour intervals the user can ride all day for free. If there is a need for longer usage then there are usage fees.

Bike sharing is a great idea for the cities aiming at providing an alternative to private car use in the city centre, thereby reducing traffic congestion, noise, and air pollution. It is a great practice for cities with parking supply problems. It also aims at supporting the use of public transportation and especially for commuters as it provides the means to the last part of the home to work trip.  Besides the obvious advantages of moving by bike like benefits in health and cleaner urban environment, bike sharing schemes are great for tourists as they provide an easy way to visit more city attractions and reach more city businesses.

There is some criticism about CityCycle especially regarding that is not so successful in attracting users. Major reasons for this are the initially high daily subscription which was 11 $ and the mandatory helmet use. The first issue was recently addressed by setting the daily subscription to 2$ which had an instant effect on rising casual hires. But the mandatory use of helmet is not. Australian bike sharing schemes are the only known bicycle share schemes that operate under a mandatory helmet requirement. But who would carry with him a helmet at all times just to use it on his last part of the daily trip to work? Also who will carry a helmet on the chance that he/she might want to borrow a bike for a quick trip to run an errand? Netherlands and Denmark are the countries with the highest percentage of bicycle use and very low percentage of accidents and no mandatory helmet use. Maybe we can learn from the best.