Edinburgh bike hire scheme heads east to mark second birthday
Just Eat Cycles has underlined its run away success as the UK’S fastest-growing bike hire scheme by expanding from Edinburgh to Musselburgh to mark its second birthday.
The city council-owned Transport for Edinburgh (TFE) operation said it now expected to notch up nearly 250,000 hires this year, twice as many as the 124,000 in 2019.
Two new bike docking stations were opened at the weekend at Brunton Hall and Harbour Road beside the marina in Musselburgh for up to 19 pedal end electric bikes each.
Alex Macdonald, gen eral manager of the S erco -run scheme, said the popular cycle corridor between Portobello, Joppa and the East Lothian town was an “obvious gap”.
He said hires on Edinburgh’s eastern edge had been “exceptionally strong”, with 17,000 so far this year. Mr Macdonald said: “This is a big opportunity for the scheme and we hope people will use it to ride into the city.”
However, he said the move, agreed with East Lothian Council, was not par t of an “expansionist strategy”.
Mr Macdonald said the development came as the scheme was growing “at pretty unprecedented speed”, adding: “Naturally, when you are growing that fast, you look at areas where there is demand.
There have been almost 183,000 hires so far this year, more than double the 87,000 over the same period in 2019. Nearly 54,000 people have hired bikes this year, which is increasing at 1,000 a week. 2019 saw 22,000 users.
Mr Macdonald said bike hire schemes like Just Eat Cycles had been one of the few parts of the economy to have boomed during the coronavirus pandemic.
He said: “I do not think there is a scheme in the UK that has grown as fast.
“Lock down was a really important time for us in that we kept going when many other things shut up shop.”
However, he admitted the operation still had a major problem with vandalism from youths attacking docking stations.
Mr Macdonald said staff were working much closer with the police, with a new app developed so officers could see immediately whether a bike had been stolen.
He said: “There absolutely is a vandalism problem in Edinburgh, but the stations are being targeted more because we are doing a better job of keeping the bikes secure.
“We are making a lot faster progress on this.”
TFE chief executive George Low ders aid :“We’ve been buoyed by the amount of people riding our bikes this year. We are incredibly proud of the scheme’s sustained growth.”