What Wandsworth bike hire stats can tell us

Last week, the council announced that almost 23,000 bike hire journeys had been made in February.

It's certainly encouraging that people are choosing to use the bikes locally. That said, usage numbers on their own are difficult to judge as good/bad or indifferent if there is no benchmark or comparison point.

The article goes on:

the area around Battersea Park proved to be the most popular destination with 1,305 journeys to and from the docking station in Albert Bridge Road, 1,206 uses of the docking station at Queen’s Circus, which is directly adjacent to the park’s south easterly entrance, 940 uses on the nearby Ethelburga estate and 558 a stone’s throw away in Alfreda Street.
Battersea as a whole saw the highest level of use with a total of 9,855 bike rides.

One simple reason in my mind why the area around Battersea Park has proved so popular. The park offers a virtually motor traffic free environment where people can use bicycles.

There is another point, which I also think important to consider. Until the recent arrival of the docking stations, people who wanted to cycle, but had no storage space weren't able to cycle.

Hopefully the impending arrival of the bike hangers to Wandsworth later this summer will start to address that issue. In essence, if we provide space where people can store bicycles and a safe environment where they can ride, people will cycle.

Sadly across too much of Tooting and Wandsworth borough, most people don't feel that our streets are safe enough to cycle on. Even if they would like to, many people don't currently have any space to securely store a bicycle for daily use.

With all the support for a number of the local campaigns I've been running, hopefully change is in the offing.