We will soon have the first Seoul Bike Anniversary as the Seoul’s renewed bike-sharing system gets a year old. It’s time to take a look at the achievements in the last couple of months. Previously I wrote about the announcement of the system in 2014 and the preparations for opening. A guest post summarized the experience with Seoul Bike. This article briefly summarizes the development since the opening and until the Seoul Bike Anniversary.
The system is constantly expanding after first starting in five areas. In July the city added 24 stations to the system on July 21 and 22. On the 21st 7 stations in Gwangjin-gu, 8 stations in Dongdaemun-gu, 2 stations in Yangchin-gu and one station in Yeongdongpo-gu were put into operation. On the next day 4 stations in Seongdong-gu, 4 additional stations in Dongdaemun-gu, 2 stations in Gwangjin-gu as well as one in Yangchin-gu and in Yongsan-gu. Now, there are in total 401 stations. Currently (as of 16 September), there are 401 rental stations.
The plan is to have the public bike-sharing system in 11 districts with 5,600 bicycles at 450 stations until the end of September. In order to achieve this milestone, Eunpyeong District is going to open 46 stations with 600 bicycles very soon!
The most crucial aspect of cycling promotion is infrastructure. Some of you might remember this picture in my article about Seoul’s initial bicycle plan:
Very little was realized. The only changes were bicycle-priority lanes on main routes and bicycle crossings. Seoul is going to add more bicycle-priority lanes. The city is discussing a speed limit of 30 km/h with the police agency. But we are still waiting for real bicycle infrastructure inside the city.
Probably a lot of people wonder in how many crashes the public bicycles have been involved. In the last 10 months, there were only 10 incidents where users of the Seoul Bike got injured.
Seoul insures all Seoul Bike users automatically and in case of a crash, hospital costs are covered by the insurance. More information on Seoul’s bike-sharing insurance can be found here.
The bike-sharing system reached 100,000 members in July. On an average day, the system is used 3,581 times per day. 31.3% of trips are in the morning and evening which implies heavy use for commuting. The average trip duration is 27 minutes and travel distance is 3.3 km. 68% of Seoul’s public bike-sharing users have a membership (monthly or annual pass).
Seoul is going to celebrate the Seoul Bike anniversary on the fourth weekend of September. There will be many events between Saturday 24th and Monday 26th. For example, Seoul is going to have a bicycle parade on Sunday 25th and an international bicycle forum on September 26. More information on the events can be found on their Facebook page.
Sources: Seoul City | Yonhap News | News1 | Chosun News
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Very disappointed--if unsurprised--to see that so little of the proposed changes to the roads were implemented. Not just for bicycles, but for pedestrians as well, Seoul's roads (and really, I'd say, most roads in South Korea) are too wide, and as we know, this has negative side effects for livability, streetscape, and traffic and traffic safety issues, not to mention things like local air pollution. South Korea needs to get serious about de-emphasizing automotive transportation.
Dear Luke,
I completely agree. Public bike-sharing is a beginning but not enough to comprehensively improve transport in Korea.
Hello~ I accrued 700 mileage points from using Seoul Bike for a year. What can I do with them?