One of the most striking features of Barcelona was the huge number of cyclists - far more than I remeber a few years ago. One of the explanations for such success is the widespread and highly successful bike hire scheme. Every red dot on this map is a bike hire station - every major place of employment, education, public transport interchange is well served by bike stations - and around major train stations there are bike hire stations at every exit.
Here's an example of one of the stations. The bikes are basic but all have lights and therefore can be used at all times of the day and night. More information is available on the Barcelona City Goverment site here., in both Catalan and Spanish.
Now I know full well that Barcelona is different to Cardiff in many ways, but the vision adopted by the City of Barcelona is a clear challenge and an opportunity for Cardiff City Council to follow. They've begun well - the bike hire scheme is in its infancy at the moment, and I'm sure will expand during forthcoming months and years. If my colleague Cllr Delme Bowen, who is responsible for transport is looking for evidence of what can be achieved in a capital city, then Barcelona may well be a very good place to look. Pob hwyl Delme.
1 comment:
Barcelona is inspiring; drawing the lesson from experience elsewhere that city-cycle schemes need to be ambitious if they are to work.
My experience is of Vienna where Citybike has 50 stations with 15-20 bike positions, 1 euro sign-up fee at any of them via credit/debit card.
Costs nothing for the first hour, 1 euro per hour after that, 2 euros for a tourist card for a day.
Cardiff can't aspire to Barcelona. But the city was given £28 million for sustainable transport by the Assembly government. So its few bike stations and high costs shows incredible parsimony and naivity.
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