The mayor of Valladolid, Óscar Puente, has ensured that the City Council, probably, "in the coming months" will buy new bicycle loan service stations, given the satisfaction with the operation of 'Biki' in its first month and the interest of neighboring companies or municipalities, such as La Cistérniga, to have stops.
This is how Puente explained it this Monday during the visit he made to the warehouse where Biki's maintenance and management facilities are located and which also works as support for the Auvasa headquarters, located on Vázquez de Menchaca street in the Polígono de Argales and in which the City Council has invested 919,383.65 euros, VAT included.
The Valladolid councilor has insisted on the "spectacular" operation of this loan service, which was launched on February 1 and which in just over a month already has some 5,700 registered users.
These figures, according to Óscar Puente, exceed expectations and even "warn how spring will have to be faced" because he considers that in the first month of operation there has been a "very high" level of use that "triples" the data from the previous system concession despite the fact that "it is doing very badly, the weather is very cold, there has been a snowfall...".
Thus, the City Council is already considering the growth of 'Biki', since the mayor affirms that there are "requests from companies that want to have loan stations in their facilities" and neighboring municipalities such as La Cistérniga "that has been addressed to be interested in implanting stations in your municipality connected to the Valladolid service".
To this he has added the "very good 'feedback'" that ensures that it has been received from the public, "beyond the jokes of the opposition."
Currently, the service is still in its deployment phase, since 83 loan stations have been installed and 14 remain to be placed. In addition, Puente recalled that "fortunately" there are "enough bikes" that have not yet been put into service that go to allow "expanding the offer" and they have the "flexibility" that the City Council and Auvasa directly manage the service, so when it is necessary to acquire new stations and implement them in areas that are in demand, they will do so.
In fact, Puente has gone further and has stated that on Monday morning representatives of the Government team and Auvasa, the municipal company on which Biki depends, held a meeting regarding the possibility of acquiring new loan stations with a view to to a growth of the service "in the coming months".
The mayor considers that the success of Biki with respect to the figures for the use of the previous Vallabici service responds to a number of questions such as that it is something "new, that always attracts attention", that the system is "much better dimensioned" , by going from 32 to 97 loan points and "from 230 to 1,000" bicycles.
In addition, regarding "the quality and the attractive product" he pointed out that the previous system "coexisted with a network of bike lanes that was worse than the current one", although he recognized that it is still "by no means up to the standard of what the city should have."
And finally, he has interpreted that the public "is becoming increasingly clear that we must move in a sustainable way."
Puente has visited this Monday, accompanied by the Councilor for Mobility and Urban Space, Luis Vélez, and the manager of Auvasa, Álvaro Fernández Heredia, the Biki warehouse in the Argales industrial estate, which is already in operation after the investment of 759,821 euros plus VAT, financed 80 percent by the Next Generation funds of the EU, through the Aid Program for Municipalities for the Implementation of Low Emission Zones and the Digital and Sustainable Transformation of Urban Transport, within the framework of the Plan of Recovery, Transformation and Resilience.
It has 2,210 square meters and has spaces for a bicycle workshop and stations, changing rooms, offices, training rooms and temporary vehicle storage.
The objective of the action has been to provide Biki with an adequate infrastructure for the correct maintenance and good operation of the public bicycle system. Likewise, it acts as a support building for the Auvasa headquarters on Bronce street.
This ship was owned by the municipal company VIVA and was not used, so it was acquired by Auvasa and has required updating and adaptation to meet the needs of the Biki service.
The project for the conditioning works and industrial activity was drawn up by a company from Valladolid, Ingeolid. Specifically, two new modules have been built inside the warehouse, one of them will be used for workshop functions and parts storage, while the other is for offices, training, changing rooms and a rest area, as well as He has conditioned the rest of the building.
The adaptation works have been carried out by the company Inmeva under the direction and coordination of 1A Ingenieros, both based in Valladolid.
As explained by the person in charge of the Auvasa Service, Adrián Rodríguez, the operation of the system is managed at these facilities, with personnel dedicated to "controlling" the situation of the bicycles and the stations, so that at any time of the day it can be used one of the four electric vans that have been purchased to move cycles from one point to another if one has been left empty or if a greater demand is expected at a certain time.
Thus, Rodríguez has pointed out that they are working on a system that makes it possible to predict the time slots of each day and week in which one of the stations may have more demand.
The service manager has indicated that in these first weeks of operation there has not been any worrying incident on the bicycles, and the work has focused more on "adjustments" or on "making users see" the best use, such as example the anchoring of bicycles to the stations.
Of course, he has specified that at the moment a greater use of the electric bicycle is perceived, since 60 percent of the trips that are made per day are in this modality. This, added to the fact that the proportion is one electric bike for every three mechanical ones, makes it necessary to "be more on top" of its maintenance.
