By Malak Monir

Having sat untouched at their stations for several months, the bicycles set up across Education City will be replaced, according to Jassim Telefat, technical affairs director at Qatar Foundation’s Capital Projects directorate.  

“We are restarting the motion [to create a bicycle system in Education City] with a different system because the contractor could not deliver,” Telefat said, explaining that the company supplying the bicycles went out of business before delivering batteries necessary for the bikes’ electronic functions.

The current bike system was supposed to be charged and function electronically at the press of a button so that riders do not need to pedal, Telefat said. But that system will now be delayed because Capital Projects are currently trying to find a new company that can supply a similar electronic bike system, according to Telefat. “We will still utilize the infrastructure that we have already…What will change are the bikes and the systems that go with them,” he said.

Meanwhile, students are expressing frustration over the repeated delays in the implementation of the bicycle system.

“They’ve been talking about having some kind of bicycle system since my freshman year, and it’s my senior year now and they still haven’t started,” said Zuhair Syed, a business administration senior at Carnegie Mellon University. “I’m actually surprised that they chose to have such high-tech bikes. Why can’t they just have normal bikes that you peddle?”  

“I think that the bikes would have solved a lot of problems, like the fact that we have to wait for the bus for more than 10 minutes and risk being late to class,” said Omaima Es-Samaali, a communications freshman at Northwestern University in Qatar.

Es Samaali added that another issue is the lack of transparency from Qatar Foundation about the delays. “The problem is that the bikes are there and we still don’t know the reason why we can’t use them,” she said.

Sara Al-Thani, a journalism sophomore at NU-Q, questioned the viability of having a bike system in EC in the first place.

“I know it is never going to work out. It might be helpful for a few people but what about the people wearing thobes and abayas,” Al-Thani said. “It’s just pointless, the money and time spent on the bike system.”