CityCycle

Great system but poorly implemented.

BIKES
Excellent, upright bikes built for city use with excellent and expensive components. Only lycra racer types with self-esteem issues will have a problem with these bikes. They are identical (except in colour) to the Parisian Vélib bikes and they've proven themselves. Brisbane is not that hilly, it is just that most of us are unfit. The gearing is adequate.

STATIONS
Many stations that are active still have red blocking devices in some of the docks which means they're technically 'full' so you can't return a bike. This has been a problem for many people who are heading to New Farm only to find there is nowhere to leave a bike. They call CityCycle only to be told that they can't come and free up some space for a few hours! They then have to ride back to find a station. Ridiculous. This needs to be managed more efficiently. There also needs to be a better way for people to purchase a subscription at the station with just a credit card. You should not need to phone anybody or connect to a website.

INFRASTRUCTURE
To make these bikes work well, particularly in the CBD on the roads, we need to separate cars from bicycles with wider bike lanes or physically separated bike lanes. Remove on-street parking in the CBD and slow cars to 30km/h. Give more space to pedestrians & cyclists. The crossings need to be more focussed on the pedestrian and cyclist with more time allocated to cross and less time for cars. The only way to make cycling appealing is to make it more appealing & convenient than driving and this is not occurring in Australia. Meandering bikepaths are pretty but are not always practical for transport purposes. We need to connect key locations with quality bikeways - schools/shops/entertainment/railway & bus stations - to make it work. We might as well start now as the future is going to have all of us using bicycles a lot more... Look to The Netherlands for inspiration -> http://hembrow.blogspot.com/

HELMETS
In response to 'citymakers' comment about "Without even getting into the pro-helmet and anti-helmets arguments". I'm sure you meant to say helmet LAW argument. I'm not anti-helmet by any means (nor are 99% of the population) but mandatory helmet legislation is a problem. It is actively discouraging the very people we need to get out on bicycles so that we can 'normalise' it in this country. Nobody would suggest banning bicycle helmets despite their questionable efficacy, however giving citizens the choice is prudent. Cycling in Australia for too long has been reduced to either a sport (helmets fit in well here) or something that people do on a Sunday. The other side of the coin are the 'commuting' cyclists. This is just as narrow a view as the former. We need to realise that a bicycle can take you everywhere in comfort. http://freedomcyclist.blogspot.com/

I love the CityCycle scheme. The bikes are reasonably attractive, and definitely functional. They encourage exercise, while speeding up a trip across the city.
Although there may be some teething-problems and functionality issues at the moment, it's got great potential, and what new project of this proportion doesn't start off slowly? It will be great when all the stations are up and running, and I really hope that all the users respect and look after the bikes so they remain the pleasure to ride that they are at the moment.
It is slightly disappointing that they don't operate after 10pm, but I can personally understand their reasons behind this.

Riding a CityCycle is like driving a hire car in a foreign country. Sure it feels a bit different to your own set of wheels back home, but once you get the hang of it, all hire cars (or bikes) are much the same. CityCycle bicycles are, by necessity, designed for all shapes and sizes. Probably then, they present a different cycling experience to each rider. Our CityCycle felt heavy and wobbly at first. In style they are Euro-cycles crossed with an airport trolley and a Segway. They are not the fastest bikes in town either, but that perhaps is the point. These are machines for urban cruising, not road racing. On a CityCycle you glide the city, your belongings in the basket up front, and head high to take in the surroundings.

Bike hire schemes like this can only benefit a city and its population. We certainly count CityCycle as an urban design as well as a transport initiative. This is a cheap, convenient and healthy travel option for short journeys between useful destinations (shops, work, cafes and the like, as opposed to the termini of motorised transportation, the rail stations and car parks – which surely are but means to an end [destination], not the end itself).

The few but predictable complaints aired about CityCycle were only predicable in their short sightedness. Who would choose to have two car parks outside their street café over twenty hire bikes? And $8m for a new urban transport project in the core of a major city seems like good value to us. (Are urban rail, metro or road projects only measured in billions these days?)

The public private partnership arrangement behind this scheme gives the operator advertising rights to scores of new ad signs around town. This is sure to irk a few souls, but if we are being serious then there are bigger design and amenity issues out there than a few billboards. Using an experienced public bike hire operator has advantages too. The allbikesnow iphone application can be used to locate nearby stations, available bikes and parking spaces, and is a hint at the kind of smart technologies that could transform the way we use urban space in a few years.

We like CityCycle. It is a smart and well put together scheme, ambitious in scale but with the potential to change travel behaviour in the inner city for minimal cost. We do however identify two risks that may limit the potential success of the scheme.

First is the well heralded helmet issue. Under Queensland law cyclists must wear a helmet. There are no exceptions for CityCycle. Without even getting into the pro-helmet and anti-helmets arguments, for CityCycle the question is whether the helmet obligation will negate the otherwise excellent convenience of kerbside bike hire stations? Helmets just don’t fit in your back pocket. (If you need an example, we carried around our CityCycle subscriber card for two weeks before trying the scheme out for the first time. Yes it was raining a lot, but we didn’t have a helmet either.)

The other sleeper issue is road space. Now that residents and visitors to the inner city have something handy to cycle (the CityCycle bikes) they need something to cycle on. Away from the excellent but indirect riverside paths, Brisbane’s CBD and inner suburbs are woefully short on the dedicated cycle lanes and other infrastructure that the experts insist is needed before mass cycling can take off. Cycling on city streets just doesn’t feel safe enough for most people, yet. And even where existing marked cycle routes exist they can fall well short of adequate. Adelaide Street to so full of buses and bus stops that its status as a major cycle route across the CBD peninsula is a cruel joke.

But now is your chance Brisbanites. Embrace CityCycle and enjoy its convenience and stylishness for all it’s worth. But Brisbane City Council we think it’s time to get serious about some A-grade cycle routes around the CBD and inner city. Without quality cycle routes this visionary scheme just might not reach its full potential.