Expansion of Nextbike System Stalls: Suburbs Have to Wait Many Years for Rental Bikes – Berlin

As fewer cars drive in Berlin in the future, those in the suburbs will also have to switch frequently to other modes of transport. The dense network of rental bike stations from the Nextbike provider should help. This is what the Red-Red-Green Alliance planned and decided during the budget negotiations at the end of 2019.

Plan: The Berlin rental bike system is to grow to the suburbs and be completely redesigned and tendered from 2022. But it doesn’t come down to that.

The involvement area of ​​the Nextbike simply cannot be expanded

Supplier Nextbike signed an agreement with the state of Berlin in 2016. Since then, the company has been developing a rental bike system, including stations in the city, and will receive 7 7.5 million by 2021. However, the treaty passed by the then Red-Black Senate states that Berlin’s S-Ban-Ring is a key area.

During talks between representatives of the Red-Red-Green Alliance and Senate Transportation Administration led by Senator Regin Gunder (the Greens) in 2019, it became clear that the contract under the Procurement Act could not be extended to the entire city. After the agreement was finalized, a new tender was to take place, the Social Democrats demanded of the parliamentary committees of the Left and Green parties.

However, this is not the purpose of traffic management. Instead, the previous agreement should be extended for another three years until 2024, as Secretary of State for Transport Ingmar Streis (Greens) writes in a statement to the House of Representatives. An estimate for a new concept from 2024 should be drawn up.

Streis told the main committee last summer that it would soon come to a new regulation, and that the report had not yet been commissioned for “epidemics.”

He was angry about the rental bike report being stolen from the transportation administration

That is why those in the coalition are angry. “This is not the point of order of budget consultations,” criticizes transport politician Christian Ronerk (Linkங்கே). A new opinion must have been obtained before the contract could be extended. He sees the demands of the coalition being ignored by the transport administration.

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Despite contractual restrictions, it seeks to set up stations beyond the S-Ban ring. So far there are parking spots at Northern Wedding and a few parking lots in Friedenov, Steklitz and Liechtenberg. Streece writes in his statement that an extension beyond the ring is “living practice”.

However, according to the agreement, the focus is on the center. According to the Secretary of State for Transport, “significant expansion for the entire city” is likely to occur from early 2024 onwards. Suburbs will have to wait for stations.

5000 Next bike bikes are on the road in Berlin

A total of about 5000 Next bike bikes were on the road in Berlin at the end of 2020. This means that their number has almost doubled since the spring of last year. The number of loans also increased significantly in 2020, rising by a third from the previous year to a total of 881,000.

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In comparison, the increase in the number of stations did not sustain the pace. Only 31 new parking points were added last year. At the end of this year there were a total of 313 people. A further 51 stations have been approved, Stries said. The fact that there are no parking spaces means that districts will reject multiple stations.

Especially in the districts of Bangkok and Templehof-Schர்க்nberg, district offices have refused to issue a large number of permits. Wolrod Kun (Greens), the city councilor in charge of Bango, named the monument “for safety concerns, insufficient selection documents” and several private, parked bicycles already around the S-Ban station.

In addition, construction site facilities and construction activities and a restricted view on return led to the rejection of applications.