The Dublin bike scheme was first introduced to the city 3 years ago and around 70,000 subscribers have signed up to use the bikes since it began operating in September 2009, making it one of the most successful city bike rental schemes in Europe.
A self-service bike rental system that is open to everyone from 14 years of age, it enables locals to commute between home and work, tourists on vacation in Ireland to travel through the city centre and offers everybody the option to get out and about to enjoy Dublin city at their own leisure.
There are currently 44 stations and 550 bikes located at various points around the city centre, and the plans announced propose to expand the scheme greatly, with the first phase aiming to treble the number of bikes available to around 1,500 and increase the access stations to 100.
Although the exact locations of the new stands will be determined in consultation with the city councillors and these suggested sites, along with a proposed schedule of work, will be presented to councillors in September, it is hoped that work should start at the end of this year and will see the first phase of the five-year expansion plan to increase the number of bikes to 5,000, the number of bike stations to approximately 300 and to ultimately bring the bikes into the suburbs as far as DCU to the north of the city, UCD to the south, Inchicore to the west and Sandymount to the east.