London’s main bikeshare system, Santander Cycles, is looking like it is finally going to grow again, after London’s Cycling Commissioner has announced a small expansion, covering the Rotherhithe and Bermondsey areas. Despite being close to the centre of London, this area has not had Santander Cycles before. The system last expanded in February last year, to Brixton. Since then, the mobility-as-a-service industry has continued to evolve, and in the absence of eScooter systems (not allowed under UK law), there are now five other bikeshare systems operating in central London, including two virtual-dock-based systems (Freebike and Beryl Bikes) and three dockless systems (Mobike, Jump and Lime), providing some competition to Santander Cycles, although it still has more bikes (and, likely, more journeys-per-day) than the rest put together.
The expansion will happen once the latest Cycleway, C4, has been fully constructed, and as this doesn’t have an exact end-date (Spring 2020 is the current plan), it also means there is no date commited to the corresponding expansion of the bikeshare. However, as TfL has said several times that there were no plans for expansion, while equivalent systems in New York and other major cities have continued to grow regularly, the change of policy is encouraging.
Rotherhithe and Bermondsey have long asked for bikeshare. Mobike has intermittently operated in the area, but there are many possible journeys that would integrate with the existing Santander Cycle docking station footprint.