Tweedgreen Mountain Biking Liftshare Scheme
Tweedgreen members carried out a survey at Glentress on Saturday 26th February, to collect information on how people travel to Glentress. The primary purpose of the survey was to identify demand for a website that could help bikers and visitors share lifts to Glentress and Innerleithen – saving fuel, money and carbon. This is a follow up to our very successful Liftshare campaign, encouraging commuters to join up to TripshareBorders to share their lifts to work. This initiative is in line with Tweedgreen’s strategy of encouraging people to use sustainable transport options to minimize dependence on fossil fuels, to save money and reduce our impact on the environment. As well as encouraging our local residents to Liftshare, we feel that it is important to encourage visitors to share their journeys, thereby protecting our beautiful environment.
Out of 35 bikers surveyed at Glentress, the vast majority had travelled from Edinburgh, Glasgow and nearby towns. A number of visitors were visiting from as far away as Leeds, Northern Ireland and even Spain (he had paid for carbon offsetting on his flight!). A significant percentage of these visitors were already sharing their journeys with friends, to save on fuel costs. 74% of respondents said that they would be interested in using a web message board that helps people link up with others to organize a lift share.
Based on this overwhelming expression of interest in a liftsharing message board for mountain bikers, Tweedgreen is now working on developing this facility. We hope to launch this web based message board by 31st March.