Call for ‘relaunch’ of local bike hire scheme to increase usage

An Athlone councillor has suggested the town's public bike hire scheme should be "relaunched" in an effort to boost its usage.

"People may have forgotten how easy it is to use. Maybe we need to have a relaunch, as a way of pushing it out again," Cllr John Dolan said, of the Moby bike hire scheme introduced by the council in Athlone and Mullingar in 2022.

He felt incentives should be put in place to attract new users of the scheme, suggesting that, for example, those who download the Moby bike hire App could be given two free hours of bicycle use.

"There is a great opportunity here, because we have the cycleway, we have the new bridge, and that (route towards Galway) is going to expand," he said.

"So I think we should have a conversation about how we're going to expand this scheme and where we go from here."

Cllr Dolan was speaking at the January meeting of the Athlone Moate Municipal District, where he had a motion calling for the further development of the bike hire service.

A written response from council management said the scheme had been expanding "on an ongoing basis" and that three additional parking stations for the bikes had recently been installed in Athlone.

These included a new parking station beside the Crescent junction, which is designed to service Athlone's bus and train station, along with "two bays on the eastern side of the town bridge".

The council added that it would "continue to develop new stations" and "explore ideas for the promotion of the scheme".

The good quality and "robustness" of the bikes used in the scheme was something people tended to comment upon, Cllr Aengus O'Rourke said.

"I think Cllr Dolan's suggestion to incentivise, and give some free hours of use with the bikes, would be a good first step," he added.

Cllr Frankie Keena asked whether the council's contract for the service with Moby Bikes had been renewed.

Noting that the bikes in the scheme were "built for urban-based cycling" and were "not suitable for long distances on the greenway", he asked if the council would consider adding a hire service geared towards longer-distance cycling.

A breakdown of bike hire usage, and the busiest bicycle stations locally, should be outlined in order to properly assess the scheme and how it could develop in future, Cllr Paul Hogan indicated.

"I certainly think there's a job of work to be done in advance of looking at any contract renewal (with Moby)," he said.

Athlone's Mayor Cllr Louise Heavin, said she uses the Moby bikes herself and that they were "handy for someone who wants to get around town quickly".

She said she would like to see bike hire stations in place across a broader section of Athlone. "The Coosan area, for example, doesn't seem to be serviced at all," said Cllr Heavin.

"I would also like to see things like cargo bikes being rolled out, which would be particularly beneficial in retail centres like Arcadia and Kilmartin's."

Council director of services Barry Kehoe told the meeting the bike hire scheme was managed by the local authority's Environment section, and he was unaware of whether the contract with Moby had been renewed or not.

He said staff in the Environment section were "working with the service provider on an ongoing basis to respond to issues that arise" with the scheme.

Mr Kehoe agreed that a different bicycle hire system would be needed in Athlone for people looking to cycle longer distances to Moate or places further afield.

"In many cases those people wish to cycle one way only, rather than out and back, so you need to be in a position then to pick up bikes and bring them back. It's a more involved service," he said.

"That's something we're working on with the tourism officer, and if there's anybody interested in providing that service then by all means come and talk to us about it."

Acting district manager Willie Ryan spoke enthusiastically about the benefits of the town's bike hire service, saying he often uses it to get out of the office and get some fresh air at lunchtime.

Mr Ryan said he had hired public bikes in Copenhagen and Paris, and he found the quality of bikes for hire in Athlone to be "on a par" with those in the European cities.

"This is a loss-making scheme. The bikes are there to provide an amenity for the town, so it would be good for more people to use them. I would say to people: Give it a go. Try it out. There's nothing to it, really," he said.