Bicycle sharing: 'Many fear that the wheels are coming off'

IN MANY ways Edinburgh seems like the ideal city for a green project which tries to persuade travellers to give up four wheels for just two, courtesy of a bicycle sharing scheme.

The city already has a network of bike lanes, even if neither motorists not cyclists are always particularly good at observing their rights – and wrongs – of way.

The relative compactness of the Capital also suggests the plan should be workable, as do fairly high levels of ecological awareness, especially among our students and other young people.

So it was with understandable enthusiasm, and no little self-publicity, that the council signed up for the Charter of Brussels and set a target for 15 per cent of all journeys in the city to be by bike by 2020.

Alas, many fear that the wheels are coming off the plan. Instead of looking to the 20,000 specially-designed bicycles of the pioneering Paris project, there is talk of a "few" bikes in just one or two locations.

All of which is a bit embarrassing for the council, which will surely now struggle to meet its much-vaunted target – London, by comparison, is aiming for just five per cent of journeys by bike by 2026.

The problem is a lack of partner firms wanting to advertise on the bikes. But in this time of austerity there must be no question of the council bailing out the scheme.

Besides, the Parisian authorities have revealed that half their cycles have been stolen and most of the rest had to be replaced within 18 months because of vandalism.

Sadly predictable – and with the best will in the world there's no reason to believe it would be any better in Edinburgh.

Class action

THE likely costs of the bike sharing scheme are put into even sharper focus by the news that the council needs to find 1.6m for more teachers for the city.

The effectiveness of small class sizes is often overstated, but where there seems little doubt that they do work is in the very first years of primary, when literacy and numeracy issues are best tackled.

Finding 40 additional teachers to cut classes in P2 and P3 from 30 pupils to 25 is therefore a target that education chiefs should not give up on easily.

With the Holyrood elections now just a year away, parents too should remind the SNP government of its commitments in this area.