Barclays abandon the Boris Bikes

[flecc]

Barclays Bank who were expected to continue support for the London Cycle Hire Scheme to 2018 has announced that they will terminate support in just over a year's time.

Their £25 million support for the scheme is around half the previously expected £50 millions. For a long time their has been obscurity surrounding the scheme's finances and many think details are being hidden, probably the true cost to the London taxpayer.

The search is already on for a new sponsor.

Barclays deny that the recent accidents have had any influence and point to their rationalisation of all charitable giving worldwide. I'd guess that a factor has been the propensity of the public to call the bikes Boris Bikes instead of Barclays Bikes, diminishing the publicity return they might have had.

I've always maintained that all such schemes are not worthwhile, usually costing taxpayers large sums to support those who should be paying for their own transport. That certainly proved true of the Paris Velib bikes which only continued due to large extra sums of taxpayer money after the company running it, J C Decaux, announced they were walking out due to their large losses.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

As a money making project, it might be a flop, but if you see it as an investment for a greener future, you can't evaluate it. It's just one of a whole load of measures to reduce the number of cars on the road and our dependence on fossil fuels. Personally, I don't believe that anybody, including Boris, believed that it would be economically successful as a stand-alone project.

 

[Clockwise]

As a money making project, it might be a flop, but if you see it as an investment for a greener future, you can't evaluate it. It's just one of a whole load of measures to reduce the number of cars on the road and our dependence on fossil fuels. Personally, I don't believe that anybody, including Boris, believed that it would be economically successful as a stand-alone project.

Pfft banks have shareholders profits to care about.

 

[flecc]

As a money making project, it might be a flop, but if you see it as an investment for a greener future, you can't evaluate it. It's just one of a whole load of measures to reduce the number of cars on the road and our dependence on fossil fuels. Personally, I don't believe that anybody, including Boris, believed that it would be economically successful as a stand-alone project.

The scheme was definitely planned to be independent of taxpayer money, needing only sponsorship and the income from the hires.

The problem first arose when the public were smart enough for their usage to be minimal in duration and only in the initial free ride period of each hire, meaning the expected income from the hires was minimal. The approximately 50% sponsorship shortfall in addition has now called into question the whole venture.

London's huge increase in cycling is independent of the hire bike scheme which has only added short cycle journeys which would mainly have been walked or ridden on buses previously. It's probable that the hire bikes haven't removed any cars from the roads since the scheme is too central for it to include more than a small fraction of London's residential areas where there is no affordable parking anyway.
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