On Jul 26, 9:43*pm, wrote:

In article . li,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

It's not for commuters who live in inner London, because there are
no stations outside Z1 (not much outside, at least), and you're not
allowed to take the bikes home overnight. It's not for commuters
who live further out, because the stations are set up to avoid
flows to or from major rail termini.

I have yet to work out who it *is* for.

Huh? It seems to provide for main line rail stations from what I've seen
near King's Cross.

The official line seems to be that a decision was taken that the
mainline termini stations were not going to be directly catered for by
the hire scheme (at least not initially) because the potential demand
would have been too high, and it would have skewed the whole system
towards coping with that demand, or something like that.

But as you say, there are plenty of docking stations within fairly
close proximity to the termini stations, so those armed with a little
inclination and foreknowledge should be able to locate them easily
enough. Whether there'll be any available bikes at these docking
stations is another matter, and I can imagine there might not be
during the morning rush - however at other times it could well be a
different picture.

*If* there is a live status map online that shows availability at
docking stations, and *if* the prospective punter has a net-connected
mobile device, then they'd be able to check whether it was worth them
heading around the corner to the docking station on arrival instead of
getting on the Tube or bus for onward travel.