The Belfast Bike Scheme has seen rentals reduce by half in the last two years, while vandalism costs have continued to increase.
First introduced to the city in 2015, there are now around 400 bikes across the city with more than 50 docking stations.
Responding to a Freedom of Information request from The Irish News, Belfast City Council said that more than 112,000 journeys/rentals were made in 2023/24, a drop of 50% since the post-lockdown boom of nearly 224,000 in 2021/22.
Only the pandemic saw lower numbers, with 65,334 journeys/rentals in 2021/22.
The most recent figures available also showed that vandalism cost over £14,500 in 2021/22, up from previous totals of over £6,000 in 2021/21, nearly £11,000 in 2019/20 and over £7,500 in 2018/19.
Higher costs were incurred in 2017/18 with nearly £22,000, and £19,600 the previous year.
SDLP councillor for Balmoral, Donal Lyons, uses the Belfast Bikes to commute to work daily, but admitted the city was still “a mixed bag” when it comes to cycling infrastructure.
“Belfast Bikes are a great system when they’re working and any vandalism is to be deplored,” he told The Irish News.
“Over the last decade or so, Belfast has seen congestion shooting upwards which is having a huge impact on people’s quality of life and with air pollution.
“It’s having an impact on the economy as well with time lost stuck in traffic.”
“The point of Belfast Bikes was to make cycling in the city as easy as possible. When we see them getting damaged by thoughtless people, it’s a real problem.”
With the new £340m Belfast Grand Central opening on Sunday, there’s hopes it will encourage more people back on their bikes with 200 spaces included for cycle parking.
“From the very early stages we’ve been arguing that we need to have active travel and cycling as part of that network,” Mr Lyons said.
“There is a significant job of work to be done on the cycling infrastructure in the city. I cycle myself and I avoid certain places myself because I know that it’s hazardous.
“We do work with the Department for Infrastructure and we’re constantly arguing for more safe bike lanes.”
He added that as a relatively flat city, Belfast and cycling should be developed further.
“It’s a mixed bag, there are routes which are safe. The Towpath is brilliant, but there are roads as well you wouldn’t use,” he said.
“We’ve been working with the council to try and get the parks like Ormeau and Botanic open later as people can use them as a safe cycle route.
“But there’s a lot of work to be done on the major arterial routes, we’ve seen successes but frankly there are parts of the city where it’s hazardous.”
A Belfast City Council spokesperson said: “Belfast Bikes had an exceptional year in 2021 (over 223,000 journeys/rentals) with the highest number of rentals since the scheme was first introduced in 2015. Annual rentals have returned to more typical usage in the last two years.”
They said several factors that may have caused the reduction since then, including remote working affecting the number of commuters, inclement weather, the age of the fleet and the growing popularity of e-bikes.”
They added that a procurement exercise is planned for the future of the scheme, including upgrades to the fleet and the addition of e-bikes.
Noting that vandalism is an issue for all public bike hire scheme operators across the UK, they said the introduction of new bikes in 2021 with more advanced technology like GPS tracking has led to decreases in thefts, but the cost of replacement parts had also increased.
Proactive measures to reduce vandalism has included “ongoing community engagement, regular checks in ‘hot spot’ areas and the temporary removal of bikes from areas where there are higher levels of vandalism.”
“Given the environmental, health, tourism and other community benefits of the scheme, the council remains committed to its operation, with ambitions to expand the Belfast Bikes network in future.”
