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More Londoners and visitors to the capital worked off their roast turkey dinners on two wheels this Christmas Day, taking part in almost 18,000 Barclays Cycle Hire journeys on December 25th.
Compared with Christmas Day 2010, there was a 300 per cent rise in journeys.
Currently more than 145,000 members use the 400 docking stations in central London, as well as casual users. This year the scheme will be expanded east as part of Phase 2 this spring.
The expanded Barclays Cycle Hire area will see around 8,000 hire bikes available from 14,400 docking points and will cover 65km² of the capital – from Westfield White City in the west to Bethnal Green, Canary Wharf, Mile End, Poplar and Bow in the east – taking in all of the Borough of Tower Hamlets as well as north Shoreditch in the London Borough of Hackney.
“Pedal power would have been the perfect way to burn off a couple of mince pies on Christmas Day and the thousands of journeys that were made on our wonderful blue bikes are yet another example of the enthusiasm Londoners have shown for the Mayor’s schem," enthused Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor of London’s director of environment.
He added: "With a massive expansion of the scheme to the east of the city in 2012 we will be making it even easier for thousands more Londoners to take to two wheels.”
