TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY has announced a series of symposiums to take place in cities around Ireland on expanding the public bikes scheme outside of Dublin.
The meetings, which will be taking place in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford from next week, are an effort to secure private sector support for the city bike scheme which has proven hugely successful in Dublin.
As reported in TheJournal.ie yesterday, the National Transport Authority is looking for alternative suggestions for funding the scheme, as the outdoor advertising deal which provided funds for the Dublinbikes scheme is unviable in the current economic climate.
Launching the symposiums with the Taoiseach this morning, Public Transport minister Alan Kelly encouraged the private sector to come forward with suggestions for how the scheme could be funded.
“Introducing public bike schemes to these cities is feasible and there have been some initial expressions of interest from the private sector who are interested in coming on board. Dublinbikes, which has seen more than 2.6m passenger journeys in Dublin in just 2 years, gives an idea of the potential for these schemes to take off”, said Kelly.
It is estimated that the cost of rolling out the scheme in the four cities would be €6.4 million.
Dublinbikes, which is one of the most successful city bikes schemes in the world, has over 63,000 subscribers who have taken over 2.6 million journeys since the scheme was launched in September 2009.
The dates for the meetings are:
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