Cork bike share scheme hits one million journeys

A lucky cyclist is in line for a new set of wheels after breaking the Cork bike share scheme’s one million journey milestone.

Cork City Council confirmed yesterday the barrier has recently been broken on the city’s Coca-Cola Zero Bikes scheme which was launched in 2014.

Cork City Council cycling officer Anita Lenihan, and Cillian Read from The Bike Shed, celebrate the millionth journey on the city’s Coca Cola Zero public bike scheme. This cyclist who made the millionth journey and three other subscribers will be presented with a bike each to celebrate this milestone. Picture: Brian Lougheed

But despite rapid growth to become one of the most popular bike share schemes in the State, the National Transport Authority (NTA) still has no immediate plans to expand it.

Last year, the Cork service had more than double the combined total of subscribers to the Galway and Limerick schemes.

The city council said its Roads and Transportation Department will use European Mobility Week to reveal the identity of the cyclist who actually made the one-millionth journey and present them with a new bike, thanks to the city council, the NTA, and An Rothar Nua.

The names of three other scheme subscribers will be drawn and each will be presented with a new bike too.

Lord Mayor Mick Finn said it’s fantastic to see the city’s bike share scheme reach the milestone.

“Cycling continues to grow in our city and the Coca-Cola Zero Bike Scheme has certainly contributed to this,” he said.

“The public bike scheme has gone from strength to strength in the city as it’s a fast, convenient way to get around the city whether you use it to commute to work, to meetings, or if you’re one of the tens of thousands of visitors to our city who use the bikes for sightseeing.”

The bike share scheme features some 330 bikes for rent located at 31 docking stations across the city, from Kent train station in the east of the city to UCC in the western fringes of the city centre.

The busiest station in the city is at Fitzgerald’s Park.

Since the scheme was launched at the end of 2014, the number of subscribers has grown to almost 12,000.

At the end of its first year, it had 1,369 subscribers; by the end of 2015 this had jumped to 7,270 and to 9,549 by the end of 2016.

By last year, just under 11,500 people were signed up and by June of this year, the figure has risen further to 11,951 yearly subscribers.

The Green Party in Cork has called repeatedly for the scheme to be expanded.

It said obvious expansion routes should include Cork University Hospital and Cork Institute of Technology in the western suburbs, and Páirc Uí Chaoimh in the south-east.

A campaign group, IBIKE Cork, staged the first phase of a campaign this week to demonstrate how an expanded scheme could work.

Cyclists took bike share bikes on a tour of various parts of the city and photographed them parked up in potential docking station locations.

“Where we parked bikes was not to suggest a definite place, just symbolise the space available,” a spokesperson said.

They plan to do a similar day of action soon to highlight potential docking station locations on the northside of the city.

Figures released last year by the NTA showed that by March 2017, it was estimated cyclists using the Cork bike scheme had travelled almost 915,000km, more than the distance from the Earth to the Moon and back.