BORIS JOHNSON has unveiled the places people will be able to pick up bikes when his new hire scheme gets underway next year.
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There will be 400 docking points scattered across central London – each about 300m away from the next – in the Mayor’s cycling project, which is modelled on similar schemes in other European cities, most recently Paris.
“Much like hailing a cab, people will be able to pick up one of 6,000 bikes, and zip around town to their hearts’ content ,” said Johnson, himself a keen cyclist.
“There is now a growing excitement about our cycle hire scheme, which will give all Londoners the opportunity to hop on a bike and experience the joys of cycling.”
Sites like Baker Street, Soho Square, Spitalfields Market and Waterloo are among the spots chosen for the bike-hire racks, with the boroughs covered by the scheme stretching from Camden, south to Lambeth and from Kensington and Chelsea to Tower Hamlets in the east.
The one slight fly in the three-in-one is that all the docking stations need planning permission, which the mayor will now be asking for. Assuming there’s no hold up on that front, the scheme should be with us by May 2010.
