Melbourne bike share scheme starts slowly

8 comments
By Richard Peace | Tuesday, Jul 27, 2010 11.00pm

There are reportedly only 70 trips a day being made on Melbourne’s brand spanking new public bike hire facility. Although Melbourne Bike Share now has 600 bikes and 50 docking stations, the lack of take-up is being blamed on Victoria’s mandatory cycle helmet-wearing laws.

Last Saturday, supporters of the bike share scheme who blame low usage on the helmet laws conducted a protest ride without helmets, a number being fined. One of those booked, Dr Paul Martin, a specialist anaesthetist in Brisbane, said, “The system is only being used to 0.5 per cent of its capacity, which is a crying shame.”

Melbourne Bike Share say that:  “Those using the scheme will need to bring their own helmet, or purchase one from a handy location near the bike station. “ They offer a low-cost helmet for purchase by subscribers with their annual membership. When the facility first opened, Roads Minister Tim Pallas said: “We expect regular users of the system will prefer to provide their own helmet, however these other options do allow people to use the system spontaneously.”

In a recent interview about cycling in Melbourne, renowned Danish cycling pundit Mikael Colville-Andersen said of Melbourne Bike Share: “The helmet law will be the major spanner in the works. I can't see the system working to any effective level. Interestingly, Mexico City and Israel both repealed their helmet laws when they launched their bike share schemes. The laws were discouraging cycling. Even the Northern Territory repealed their law for the same reason.”

Official opinion on helmet wearing remains as divided as ever. Few countries have any national laws and some, such as the USA leave it to local jurisdiction. Requirements for young people to wear a helmet seem more popular than ones covering all ages.

Public bike hire schemes continue to be introduced all across the globe, and appear to be going from strength to strength:

UK: London’s scheme begins on Friday and 3000 people have already registered (they will be the only people who can use the bikes during the first month).

USA: Nice Ride Minnesota in Minneapolis reports 25,000 trips in its first 40 days.

Germany: Metroradruhr is bringing bike sharing to ten industrial Ruhr valley cities, a bit of a departure as most schemes up to now have been for one city – this is a single system connecting nearby cities.

Canada: Montreal’s scheme registered more than a million rides in its first month of operation, and Toronto launches its facility in May 2011.

UK: Blackpool were happy enough with the performance of their initial 60 bike scheme to be expanding it to a 500 bike one over the rest of this year.

Cyprus: 285 bicycles and 24 docking stations should be in place in Nicosia by early autumn. 

China: There are reports that Beijing will have 50,000 bikes for public hire by 2015.

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User Comments

There are 8 comments on this post

Showing 1 - 8 of 8 comments

  • One also needs to consider that it's actually very easy to get around Melbourne's CBD on foot. Just hop on a free City Circle tram if you need to get from one side to the other, or get a cheap Zone 1 ticket to tram it into surrounding suburbs.

  • Some comments from someone who lives in Melbourne (me) as to why the bikes are under utilized:

    *the Government installed the bikes without determining there was a need for them (it is rare they consult with 'customers' before making big plans)

    *to use the bikes, an I hear and annual subscription needs to be bought (may not be true, but this puts me off the idea immediately)

    *while traveling through the CBD last week I saw one bike station. No idea where all the others are supposed to be.

    *the bikes weight a ton and the CBD is quite hilly

    *I'm not going to pack a helmet just in case I want to use the bikes, nor am I going to by an el cheapo helmet to use the bikes.

    *it's been quite chilly the last month or so

    *the helmet law is annoying and typical of the way the Government loves to nanny us.

    Another example of bad idea, good intentions, is putting in bike lanes between parked cars and the footpath. These make me feel unsafe due to inattentive passengers, pedestrians, and vehicle operators. Fortunately the law says we have to use bike lanes unless impractical to do so (which IMHO, the separated ones are).

  • It is a big shame that the Victorian Government has clearly not looked at what has worked overseas before starting this system. It is almost like they read an article stating that bike share programs were proving very popular overseas and that was the limit to their research. Why on earth is Tim Pallas in charge of the scheme? He is the minister for roads, clearly a bike share program is a form of public transport and should be treated as such!

    I've done a rather in depth analysis of the situation that can be viewed at

    http://www.ikaink.net/blog/?p=696

  • Makes for an interesting read, only one article but I suspect a lot is very true:

    http://www.cyclorama.net/viewArticle.php?id=62

  • A few reasons they wont work as good -

    The stupid nanny country and their laws against everything including helmets, one reason I left for the UK.

    Car drivers look down upon cyclists in Oz as they all seem to think their cars are proportional to their penis size.

    Most Aussies are lazy.

  • May be for the helmets they could have a vending machine with different sizes, make them as cheap as possible but still within Aus standards. As much as helmets are an inconvenience, so is being a vegetable for the rest of my life, i know what i would rather. Also, esmoothed out ven though Aussies are lazy, you cant really assertain what the interest will be in an incentive until it is introduced, i think good on the melbourne government for having a crack. only time allows bugs to be ironed out and the design to be fine tuned.

  • I live in Melbourne and ride to work 5 days a week.

    Helmets aren't the issue - few of the people I've seen riding the blue bikes are wearing them anyway and the tourists certainly aren't.

    The real issues are that they launched the scheme in the middle of the winter - I suspect that the bikes will be used more this summer - and that the bikes just aren't needed as Melbourne's CBD has excellent street-level public transport, including some that is free.

    None of this is really surprising - as far as I am aware Melbourne is the only city in the world that has let a motorists organisation - the RACV - run a bike hire scheme.

    In any case none of these schemes are replacing car trips so what's the point of them?

    Re helmets - they save lives. The reason they don't use them in Copenhagen is nothing do with them not working, it's just that the authorities think that if people have to wear a helmet and mess up their hair then they won't ride bikes. They'd rather lose a few cyclists to head injuries than discourage the vain.

  • "A few reasons they wont work as good -

    The stupid nanny country and their laws against everything including helmets, one reason I left for the UK.

    Car drivers look down upon cyclists in Oz as they all seem to think their cars are proportional to their penis size.

    Most Aussies are lazy"

    Funny, I lived in the UK for a while and I seem to remember quite a lot of regulation, including having to licence my TV - only place in the world I've had to do that.

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