2 days ago
Bleeper bikes service returns to Castleknock and Carpenterstown
Approximately €10,000 worth of damage was done to the Bleeper bike fleet this year in Dublin 15, with vandalism and theft rates going 'off the charts' after March 1, according to Steven McGinn, walking and cycling officer with Fingal County Council.
'So, rather than allowing that to progress and potentially put the entire [Bleeper] scheme at risk, we pressed pause in Dublin 15 and removed the bikes while we met with the local gardaí,' he said.
Mr McGinn said this was 'very fruitful' and allowed Bleeper and gardaí to recover 15 of the 28 stolen bikes.
Now the council is ready to progress with the first phase to reintroduce Bleeper bikes to Dublin 15, he told the local area committee yesterday.
'That's going to be around the Castleknock/Carpenterstown area. We're going to monitor that really closely and just make sure that everything is going to plan,' he said.
'Then we're planning to move back out to Hartstown and a few places like that.
'We'll reintroduce the bikes slowly, we'll keep an eye on the scheme and make sure everything's working the way it should. We will hopefully have a full reintroduction of the service in the next four to six weeks.'
Councillor Angela Donnelly said the reintroduction was 'fantastic news'.
'I'm really, really pleased to hear that because the couple of people that came to me, it was their journey from their house to the train station that they really found the Bleeper bikes very useful,' she said.
Fingal residents are entitled to a 'Fingal Pass' with Bleeper bikes, which allows them to cycle pedal bikes free for the first 30 minutes of their journey.
After this period, they will be charged the regular rate of 4c per minute.
The firm also offers e-bike options, with a higher rate of 16c a minute charged for those journeys.
Mr McGinn added that the council was finalising a deal with another bike sharing provider, Moby, to bring their e-bikes to Dublin 15 in the next two weeks.
Moby has also partnered with several other local authorities such as Dublin City Council and Wicklow County Council.
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