Bikes are a great way to get around a city (especially if you can maintain a sense of balance to ride one). However, with the bike hire schemes, there are two types – docked bikes (where you go to a docking station to pick up a bike and return it later such as the TfL scheme) and dockless bikes – where you pick one without having to use a docking station (such as Lime and Forest).
The idea is that it’s a bit more convenient to use dockless bikes. The downside is that dockless bikes are sometimes careless discarded after use, blocking pavements and accessways.
Well, it seems The City of London Corporation (the Local Authority entity for the “Square Mile” of London) has had enough.
Lime and Forest eBikes – Image, Lime, Forest.
The City of London Corporation has undertaken on-street action to remove hire e-bikes from its streets and pavements, where they have been found to obstruct or cause an immediate danger to others.
More than 100 bikes were confiscated during a two-week enforcement period.
The move is to encourage the fleet operators (Lime and Forest) to manage their fleet and customers to comply with good parking behaviour.
The seized e-bikes were stored in a safe location for 24 hours, before the providers were able to collect them for a fee, to cover the cost to the City of removal and storage.
Whilst The City Corporation has agreements in place with hire operators around where people should park bikes, it seems the scale of complaints received has forced its hand in starting its own clean-up campaign, to reduce pavement obstructions caused by poorly parked bikes.
So far, an extra 300 parking spaces for hire bikes have also been committed across the Square Mile to help users park safely and considerately, with both Lime and Forest having both committed to improving their service. Lime is launching a safe riding campaign to promote responsible cycling and adherence to the Highway Code, as well as funding extra parking bay
In Quotes
Chair of the City of London Corporation’s Planning and Transportation Committee, Shravan Joshi, said:
“I recently met with the CEO of Lime, along with their CFO and UK Director which provided an opportunity to ensure their global senior leadership fully understands the impact. Lime has seen remarkable success and with 16 million journeys taken (including by me!) during London’s commuting hours in 2024, their presence on the streets is undeniable, but so too are the challenges posed by bikes cluttering our pavements.
“The action plan from Lime is welcome news, particularly a funded programme that helps ensure we can continue to see dockless bikes on London’s streets without causing disruption and obstacles to others. Alongside this, we will keep up the pressure to make sure results are quantified and meaningful, alongside Transport for London and London Councils.”
Park it responsibly, please.
I’ve lost count on my travels where I’ve seen bikes (and more often than not) discarded to the side of a pavement, tipped over or worse. Whilst there is the responsibility on the companies to ensure there are adequate places to park your bike after you’ve finished using it, a lot of this is also on the user base – who will have to get used to parking the bike in an allocated place, rather than dropping somewhere where you can trip over them – or it being a hazard to other pavement and road users.
It’s an equal responsibility – one to be taken seriously (after all, seeing someone take a tumble because of a poorly parked bike isn’t fun, or having to take a long way around when bikes are blocking your path (especially with people with different accessibility needs), or blocking the entrance to a business isn’t helpful.
Hopefully, the fines will motivate Lime and Forest to do better, rather than seeing as the cost of doing business in London.
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