We had a bike rental system launch in Cardiff very recently, run by NextBike. It has been a massive success, and fills a pretty gaping hole in our city's transp

We had a bike rental system launch in Cardiff very recently, run by NextBike. It has been a massive success, and fills a pretty gaping hole in our city's transportation. Cardiff is basically entirely flat, and has a few separate parts (like Cardiff Bay) which are a not-inconsiderable walk away, as well as a strangely awkward train journey. It's a city pretty well known for being easy to walk everywhere, but the bikes have made it so much simpler. I signed up as an early adopter because 2 of the first 5 stations they installed essentially cut a 30 minute walk to the central train station into a 7 minute cycle. Cardiff was apparently NextBike's most successful UK city on the May bank holiday weekend. The bikes are largely well maintained and nobody seems to have vandalised them so far from what I've seen. Our cycle lanes are designed by blithering imbeciles, but that's pretty standard for the UK. The ones here have docks, though they're in sensible places. I have seen a dockless system in Oxford and that also seemed to work well, mostly because of the sheer number of bikes around. I know why the schemes are successful in Europe, but I can understand why people would be skeptical about their success in the US.