A new public bicycle rental service was launched yesterday morning (June 23rd) in Guangzhou. PHOTO:Guangzhou Daily
Citizens can simply use a Yangchengtong Card to borrow a bike. PHOTO:Guangzhou Daily
A new public bicycle rental service was launched yesterday morning (June 23rd) in Guangzhou. Eighteen rental spots have been set up along the BRT line from Tianhe Park to Huajing New Town as well as in large-scale housing estates nearby. However, it seems that citizens were not won over by this new service as only 51 bikes were used all day.
This rental service is still in the early stages with too fewer bikes and complicated procedures to follow; the bikes are free for the first hour after which the price goes up to a maximum of 30RMB per day. By the time the Asian Games open in November, the Guangzhou Traffic Commission promises 400 rental spots and 15,000 bicycles.
But is there a real demand for this service in Guangzhou? In Paris, a similar service called velib has proven a great success and is praised as economical, healthy, and environmentally friendly with city dwellers from all backgrounds using the bikes to cross town. But in Guangzhou where economic status is still shown by the size of one s car, experts predicts that only people with low income living in the city s urban villages are to become the primary users.
Indeed, the usual targets for such environmentally-friendly services are the well-educated middle class yuppies. For them however, adventuring onto Guangzhou roads shall no doubt be out of the question. Dedicated bicycle lanes have only just started to appear in Guangzhou, mainly in Tianhe district, but are frequently disregarded by car drivers or pedestrians rendering cycling through Guangzhou a perilous task.
