Hill+Knowlton Strategies

I like Boris. I really do.  In fact all my family are fans.  One of my three year old’s favourite books is Calm down Boris – about a messy-haired, friendly monster that goes round causing mischief.  Following the London mayoral elections in 2008 a bookseller set up a stand outside City Hall and shifted hundreds of copies. 

However, has he gone a step too far with the London Cycle Scheme that’s set to start later this week?  The theory behind it is good.  Providing an alternative, greener way to travel across the city is an excellent concept.  I can even see a rank of docking stations from my office window in Soho Square so there’s an even greater reason to banish those little one to two mile black cab bookings for a client meeting that each add greenhouse gases to our already polluted skies.

It’s not for me though.  I for one though won’t be using the scheme.  A straw poll around the Energy & Industrials team at work suggests I’m not alone.  Here are just some of the reasons why: 

• Free to use for the first half hour.  Great.  It’s not free though is it?  And it’s complicated.  First of all I should really become a member, then I need to pay an access fee, then I need to pay a hire fee.  It looks like it’ll be cheaper, quicker and simpler to get on the tube.  Particularly when the costs escalate rapidly after the “freebie” half hour.
• Whilst you can hire a bike, it seems that there’s no way of hiring a helmet to go with it.  The Melbourne bike hire scheme was a flop because it’s illegal to ride a bike without a helmet and – like London – they weren’t provided.  I used to cycle between Clapham and the office every day so can confidently say that London cycling takes a certain sense of determination and bravery.  James Cracknell is currently fighting for his life following his bike accident last week, and arguably would have been killed on the spot if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet.
• If the bike gets stolen or damaged there’s a £300 fine that I’m hit with.  No thanks.
• A number of the bikes have been produced in, and shipped from, Canada.  So not supporting British industry, and failing on environmental standards too.
• Oh, and it’s also a bit of a monster of a machine apparently.  23 kilograms to be precise.  That’s double the weight of a normal bike and doesn’t sound too easy to handle.

Boris has got a lot riding on this scheme.  Yesterday marked two years to go until the start of the 2012 Olympics, and the roller coaster that is Boris’ popularity had him soaring this week.  Some are saying that it’s a rise before a fall, and that failure of the Cycle Scheme could ultimately cost him his job.  I hope it doesn’t come to that, but equally I hope that the teething problems above – and there must be many more – get sorted out quickly.  Maybe then I’ll give it a try?