100 new Dublin Bikes, more room at stations, 4 more stations

4517340901_5fff9f16a5Dublin City Council have announced details of the planned expansion of the on street rental Dublin Bikes:

dublinbikes gearing up to expand capacity

Dublin City Council’s Transportation and Traffic Strategic Policy Committee has voted to accept proposals to expand the capacity of the dublinbikes scheme.

This is in response to the massive demand and success of dublinbikes since its launch on 13th September 2009.

According to Jim Keogan, Executive Manager in Dublin City Council’s Planning and Economic Development Department “dublinbikes has attracted over 20,000 long term members and more than 10,000 short term members in only eight months.  In that time dublinbikes members have made well over half a million bike journeys.  96 per cent of these journeys have been free as the average journey time of 16 minutes is well within the initial free first 30 minutes of any journey.  This far exceeds anything we anticipated and hoped for in the first year of the scheme’s operation.”

The increased capacity will make more bikes available at peak morning, lunchtime and evening times. The proposal provides for the following:

  • 100 extra bikes (increasing capacity from 450 to 550)
  • Approx 300 new bike stands (increasing capacity from 795 to 1,087)
  • 4 new bike stations (40 to 44)

The value of this expansion is estimated at €6.6million which Dublin City Council could not possibly fund from its current resources. The Transportation and Traffic SPC has accepted proposals that fund the expansion through the provision of advertising at some new locations. Seven of these locations have been identified. Income from subscribers from the dublinbikes scheme over three years of €900,000 will also part-fund the expansion plans.

Ends

Notes to the Editor

New station locations

The proposed locations for the four new stations are:

  • Smithfield
  • Eccles Street
  • Harcourt Terrace
  • Charlemont Mall

Planning

The proposed new advertising locations are subject to Part VIII planning applications. The provision of the new bike stations will be constructed by means of exempted development, similar to the scheme’s existing 40 stations.

Latest statistics on dublinbikes (as at 18th April 2010)

  • Total subscriptions 31,232 (21,134 Long-Term [1-year], 10,098 Short-Term [3-day])
  • Total journeys 556,497
  • Busiest day to date 16th April 2010 (4,737 journeys)
  • Average number of times each bike is used per day: 9.9
  • Average number of Long-Term members per station: 528
  • Average number of Long-Term members per bike: 47
  • Average number of Long-Term members per bike stand: 26.5

...That's the end of the article. Keep scrolling if you want to the comments, but IrishCycle.com *NEEDS* readers like you to keep it that way. It only requires a small percentage of readers to give a bit each month or every year to keep IrishCycle.com's journalism open to all. Thank you.


3 comments

  1. Great news that the scheme is expanding.
    However, €6.6million sounds wildly expensive.
    Any ideas how this is this broken down?
    Also, the choice of station locations sounds a little puzzling. Any ideas how the locations are/will be chosen?
    IMHO, some potential locations would be:
    College Green
    O’Connell bridge
    Somewhere close to the new Samuel Beckett Bridge

    Reply
  2. I don’t know how it is broken down, but it includes everything from the new bikes, new stations and the extra stands at current stations to the installation and upkeep of the same. It’s a large amount of extra stands.

    This is more about increasing current capacity rather than expanding the area of the system. There’s large capacity problems at the moment as the system is too popular, which is a great problem to have, it just has to be fixed before expanding the system’s area.

    The new stations are all located near busy current station. But the extra stands to be installed at other current stations will also help.

    The city council are apparently looking into expanding the system further, this is just a short term move to help the capacity problems.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.