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You’re hard-pressed to walk more than a few metres in London without a peloton of e-bikes whizzing past. And now a tonne more e-bikes are available to rent in the capital, as TfL has just added 900 more to its fleet.
The TfL Santander Cycles bike hire scheme (FKA as the ‘Boris bikes’) has been around for a long time, but has faced stiff competition from Lime in recent years due to the Uber company boasting an entire fleet of e-bikes (lots of Santander Cycles bikes remain bog-standard, un-electrified push bikes).
To compete with Lime domination, TfL introduced e-bikes back in 2022, and soon users will be able to use mobile payments to hire bikes, bringing the service well and truly into 2024.
According to TfL, the Santander e-bikes are now hired at twice the rate of standard bikes. They’re available to anyone registered with the hire scheme for £3.30 for a 30-minute ride, or £1 per 60 minutes if you’re a monthly or annual member.
The announcement comes amid TfL’s efforts to make London a more cyclable city. In the spring, it announced that £19.5 million of funding will be used to extend the capital’s network of Cycleways and complete cyclist-friendly routes between Lead Bridge and Dalston; Deptford and Deptford Creek, and Hammersmith and Kensington Olympia.
Did you see that one of London’s major cycle highways is getting extended?
Plus: why is this London council banning e-bikes being abandoned on pavements?
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