Bike scheme much more popular in Athlone than Mullingar

The pay-per-use bicycles provided in Mullingar and Athlone are used five times more often in Athlone than in Mullingar, a recent council meeting has been told.

The bicycle hire scheme, operated by Moby Bikes on behalf of Westmeath County Council, was introduced in both towns in 2022.

At the March monthly meeting of the local authority, councillors were told of how the scheme had been attracting much more use in Athlone than in the county town.

“I suppose there's no surprises there, with the college and things like that. But they're not used as much as we'd like them to be,” said Ambrose Clarke, a senior engineer at Westmeath County Council's Environment and Climate Action section.

Mr Clarke said he was looking to see if usage of the bike rental scheme could be boosted.

“We've looked at lots of different things trying to make it more popular, but it's costing a few bob and we will have to see where we go with that,” he said.

However, he stressed, the council was keen to continue offering bike rentals as an option for people coming to town.

“But we just have to make a decision in the future how we're going to keep going with that,” he said.