Thanks to @londoncyclist for tweeting a link to this very nice dynamic visualisation of Barclay’s Cycle Hire station capacity by UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA).
Here are a few screen shots I took of the vis from last night and this morning.
The Commuter Rush
In the image below you can see the number of bikes available in the past 24 hours. The two large dips indicate the commuter rush in the morning and the the commuter rush in the evening, whilst the smaller dip falls around lunch time.
Bicycles and Trains
The two images below show the number of bikes available at Belvedere Road and Baylis Road cycle stations. Both these stations are located in close proximity to Waterloo Station and quickly rose from empty to full capacity during the commuter rush back home. A similar pattern occurred around other rail stations in the city including Charing Cross, Euston, Liverpool Street and Kings Cross.
It appears as though commuters coming in from further a field or in the commuter belt around London are taking advantage of the Boris Bikes as an alternative to getting on the tube at these congested stations. Alternatively it could be that these stations are the entry point for a great deal more workers into London than any particular tube station.
The Morning Picture
Finally, the image below shows how the cycle stations looked at 9:25 this morning. Blue indicates empty and red indicates full, whilst those circles with an aqua blue border indicate completely full and those with a yellow border completely empty.
This images shows the inverse of the commuter rush from yesterday evening. Instead cycle stations near prominent commuter rail stations are empty and those in the West End and the City are full.
The Evening Standard (below) claims the Boris bike compares favourably with Paris’s Velib.
Yet there’s more Velib’s, more docking stations, covering a larger area, charging less for annual subscription, costing the taxpayer less, weighing less and closing roads along the city’s river every week rather than once a year.
Go figure.
I’ve googled this post’s title quite a lot since I snapped off my saddle last week on the way home from work. It turns out that Bontrager like to use very odd sizes of bolts that you local bike shop is unlikely to stock. In fact most people I spoke to were of the opinion I’d have to buy a whole new seatpost. Not so.
After some hunting I settled on a 50mm M7 socket capscrew bolt from Stig’s Stainless Fasteners. I hope this saves someone some time.
Now listening to
