Car Hire – Cheaper than riding a bike?

It has emerged yesterday that hiring a car for a day is going to be cheaper than hiring a bike on Boris Johnsons new London bike hire scheme.

In a bid to clamp down on congestion and inner city pollution in London, Boris Johnson’s hire a bike scheme is being launched this Friday with over 6,000 bikes available across the capital.

According to Mark Prigg writing for thisislondon.co.uk a bike hired using the new scheme could cost as much £50 for a 24 hour rental period while a day’s car rental from Streetcar will cost members £49.50.

However he then continues to write that both schemes require initial membership fees and with Streetcar membership costing £49.50 and Boris’s bike scheme ranging from £1 to £45.  On top of this the first 30 minutes of bike hire is free, so if you only need to embark on a short journey you won’t have to pay a penny.  Moreover the article doesn’t mention the running costs of hiring a car in London, you might hire a car for £50 (the same price as a bike) but you need to add fuel to go anywhere, pay for parking and also pay congestion charges.

Though the bike hire scheme is expensive over a long rental period, it is still going to be cheaper than hiring a car for the same period, that is unless you don’t go anywhere in your hire car.