LONDON’S blue bikes will be seen in east as well as central London from today and are now set take in the new Olympic Park area in September.
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Expansion into Tower Hamlets has long been planned, but there has been some doubt as to when hire bikes would be seen on the 2012 Games site as Barclays Bank, the scheme’s backers, is not classed as a ‘Tier 1’ Olympics sponsor.
Now it has been confirmed that the hire bikes and their associated docking stations will be installed at the Olympic Park directly after the Paralympic Games, which end on 9 September.
“Right after the Paralympic Games, we have plans to expand the scheme into the park,” Mayoral aide Kulveer Ranger told LBC today.
“The Olympic Park will be a wonderful place this summer and it will have lots of things going on. Rather than complicate that situation by adding the bikes into the mix, they will go right to the edge of it.”
Ranger’s boss Boris Johnson was also full of cycling optimism.
“Our wonderful blue bikes have changed the face of London and introduced a new form of public transport that has eased getting around our great city for thousands of Londoners and made the capital even more attractive to visitors,” said the Mayor.
Meanwhile, fraudsters have admitted swindling £46,000 out of the bike hire scheme, by arranging spurious refunds for their friends.
