Why cycle hire schemes are the new menace

But maybe I haven’t quite managed this every time I’ve rented one. And maybe there are some users who don’t even stop to think about where they park their bikes. The fact is, bike hire schemes rely heavily on the behaviour of their users, which can fall short of expectations. It’s little wonder that these bikes seem to have overrun our towns, and that they’ve been received poorly by many local residents, especially those with disabilities. 

“We raised the issue years ago, but since the pandemic it’s got worse,” says Sarah Gayton from the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). “They used to say London’s streets were paved with gold – now they’re paved with bicycles.”

The bikes, Sarah explains, are often left blocking accessible features on the pavement, like the tactile surfaces near crossings and the control boxes at traffic lights. But crucially, when a bike is parked on a pavement, it’s likely to impede somebody who walks with the aid of a white cane. 

“A blind person needs all of the pavement to navigate,” says Sarah. “Some will read the edge by the shop fronts, some will use the kerb, others will walk down the middle. The bikes block all of that.”

Erik Matthies, of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, is himself registered blind and says that badly-parked mobility “solutions” are causing blind or partially sighted people to lose their independence. I ask whether he knows how often blind people trip over or collide with parked scooters and bikes, or whether such data is ever collected.

“Pavement clutter is so frequent a feature of walking anywhere that I wouldn’t report it every time I encountered it, even if there were some means by which to do so,” explains Erik.

“Blind and partially sighted people are telling us that particularly in London where there are high numbers of dockless vehicles, these pavement obstructions can severely limit their ability to get out and about with confidence and independence. But being blocked, tripped, or even having to walk in the road to get around obstacles on the pavement is so common for people with sight loss that such incidents are always going to be under-reported.”

It’s not just blind and partially-sighted people whose independence is blighted by the bikes. People with other disabilities, parents with pushchairs, the elderly and people with young children have all expressed their frustration with the recent explosion of bike hire schemes, with Lime – the operator of a large fleet of bright green e-bikes – being singled out as a key culprit. A lot of that has to do with the company’s relatively recent expansion beyond London’s centre.

“We establish mandatory parking spaces in places like Westminster, Camden, Kensington and Chelsea,” says Hal Stevenson, Lime’s director of policy for the UK. “That changes as you get a little bit further out, where we operate a ‘preferred’ parking system. That means that in busy places, we provide mandatory parking locations, but in less sensitive areas like residential streets we would allow you to park outside parking locations – provided you park responsibly. There is some flexibility there.”

There’s an environmental argument being made here. Lime’s availability in towns is deemed to have a positive impact on emissions, and it’s because of this that councils are happy for the bikes to be made available in residential locations. Lime’s data shows that its users are reluctant to walk more than two minutes to find a bike; in theory, mandating bike parking spaces could make the scheme less convenient, therefore reducing its green impact. And according to Hal, only a minority of users break the app’s parking rules.

“We have hundreds of thousands of trips in some boroughs every month,” says Hal. “So even if a small percentage of those trips end in a non-compliant way, there will be issues with parking. Behaviour has improved, but so has the number of trips.”

In future, Lime says that there’ll be an increase in designated spaces provided for dockless bikes – including repurposed car parking spaces – but that the true dockless model will continue to be used in residential areas outside the city centre. It’s by far the largest and most conspicuously well-funded cycle hire scheme in the country, and is therefore likely to influence the way schemes are adopted in other cities as well.

Forest – formerly known as Human Forest – is one of the smaller cycle hire operators in London. Like Lime, it offers a fleet of e-bikes that can be booked on an app, and like Lime it allows riders to leave them in most places within the service zone.