Bike Sharing comes to Warsaw, again.

Veturilo Bike Sharing Station across from Warsaw University.

After some deliberation and months of planning the Veturilo Bike Sharing program launched today at 20 locations around the center of Warsaw. The plan is to open more than 55 locations around the center and into the suburbs.

Veturilo will be paired with Bemowo Bikes, which kicked off in April, so if you already have a Bemowo Bikes account you can rent from both systems with ease. A bike rented from Bemowo can be returned to Veturilo stations and vice versa. Combined the two systems will provide more than 1100 bikes citywide. More than 1000 people have already registered and the first 100 bikes were rented in less than 30 minutes. There is a plan to expand 13 Veturilo stations to Praga in the coming months.

Both systems are operated by Nextbike which manages bike share programs in 50 cities across 9 other countries. The bikes look sturdy and well designed. The cost is moderate, in fact it is cheaper than most other bike shares we’ve used in the past. Registration is 10 zł. The first 20 minutes are FREE! ( woo-hoo!). After the first hour it is 1zł, the second hour is 3zł, third hour is 5zł, and 7zł per hour after 4 hours. There is a penalty of 200zł for more than 12 hours use. So, it’s not your personal bike. There are more than fifty stations. Get on a bike, ride, dock it at the station and go on about your business. Return home in the same manner. All told, a trip across the city shouldn’t cost you more than 3-4zł. Cheaper than a bus or Metro ride. Nice!

Veturilo Bike Share stations around Warsaw

We have a brand new station just across from our flat. It went together in record time. One day it just popped up. Two days later there were bikes and today people began renting them. Boom! Just like that. More bikes cruising around Warsaw. I’m sure there will be some adjustment period with so many more bikes on the streets. The local media has already begun singing the song of unskilled and irreverent rental cyclists clogging the streets and menacing the pavements. We see it as just the opposite. We see more people using bikes as an easy, convenient means of transporting themselves around the city when they wouldn’t have normally used a bike. We see friends and colleagues visiting from other cities and easily having a bike to ride. We see Warsaw becoming a more bike friendly city.

This afternoon we saw about 12 Veturilo bikes on the street between the Center and Old Town. Not a bad rate of usage for the first day. A recent survey indicates that more than 60% of respondents see Veturilo as a benefit to living in the city. We agree! One thing we hope to see that might help the system work nicely is a smartphone app similar to Citybike Wien in Vienna. The Citybike Wien app will tell a user of the nearest station, the availability of bikes and the balance due upon return of the bike to a station. It’s pretty sweet.

Even though we both have bikes we will be signing up if nothing else just to try out the bikes and the system. It should be fun. Maybe I’ll even take one on our Thursday night group ride.