Recent news has highlighted the decline of Boris bike rentals so far this year. This fall has been attributed to the bad weather that has plagued us up until the end of March and Boris Bike rental prices, which was implemented at the beginning of 2013 and saw prices double.
The figures from the 1st week of March have shown that 135,364 bikes were hired compared to more than 193,000 in the same week in 2012 and the use of the Boris bike scheme has been in steady decline since its peak, in the weeks leading up to the Olympics.
Hopefully people will be commuting more using their own bikes and not give up on cycling as a means of transport altogether. However it is possible that cycling as a form of transport is losing its appeal to those ‘non cyclists’. There are many things that put people off cycling such as high profile cycling fatalities, which can be very scary and daunting, especially to those of us not used to cycling in busy urban areas. 2012 had a 5 year record high for the number of cycling fatalities with 122 deaths. The recent Boris Bike accident involving a cyclist and a lorry, which has left the cyclist fighting for his life, will only highlight peoples existing fears about not only using Boris bikes, but cycling in general.
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