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Has London’s e-bike situation gone too far?

BBC London

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Walk down almost any London street now and you’ll see them - bright, bulky hire e-bikes. Sometimes neatly parked, sometimes dumped across the pavement. Lime, Bolt, Voi and Forest are among the biggest e-bike hire operators you’ll spot across the capital.

For some, electric bikes are a convenient part of London’s transport network. For others, e-bike parking is adding to chaos on the street. So what’s really going on with London’s hire e-bikes? BBC London’s Tom Edwards explores.

#London #Electricbike #Cycling #Bike #Limebike

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20 Comments

@tazE3000 1 day ago

Funny when all the roads are clogged with vehicles no one asks if it’s ‘gone too far’

@RXP91 1 day ago

Can't go very far across London without cars being in your way and being everywhere.

@dellgoodman3918 1 day ago

Should have a deposit scheme, so you rent a bike, and pay an extra £3-5 that is held, if the bike is docked in a safe area you get it back, if it's not, you get charged and it's transferred to the local council

@TheGillerNation 1 day ago (edited)

Imagine we talked about cars like this. We're absolutely brainwashed.

@rolleyrolley7192 1 day ago

Nah. The cars are out of control

@M69392 1 day ago

Cars: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win

@zodd67 23 hours ago

To be honest they're only annoying because some of the riders don't follow the rules of the roads, jumping lights, not doing shoulder checks before turning or signalling etc. And they have a tendency to dump them in motorcycle bays which is irritating as they have their own designated ones nearby usually. Otherwise they're a decent way to get around.

@charlesjtwhite 1 day ago (edited)

Why do so many people in this country hate good things? Every mode of transport has negative externalities, and rental e-bikes have a comparatively modest profile in that regard.

@Antonpm11 1 day ago

Yes, they have their problems, but as someone who owns a bike and cycles in London, these are the only things that give us hope of ever having decent cycling infra due to the uptake of them. If you are a user of a dockless ebike and you're reading this, please don't block the spaces for us bike owners to lock ours. You can park the things anywhere.

@James_D_S 23 hours ago

Yes - I am a wheelchair user and often I cannot get onto a pavement because of these and I have to proceed in the road

@torashuPanda781 1 day ago

Now do the same report but with cars instead. I suspect you can find much more cases of people being hurt by them and, god forbid, even killed by irresponsible drivers.

@dsbPaladin 1 day ago

I cannot, and don't want to imagine London without hire bikes. So many people get around so conveniently it's outrageous. I have started to lime bike from train stations late at night when coming back from holiday - saves me an hours bus ride or an extremely expensive cab. At this point I do it just for fun even if it takes me longer really.

@thomasphilipmeadows4569 4 hours ago

"the entrance to Gregg the bakers" - what a formal way of putting it.

@simplex_ger 22 hours ago

No matter whether we're talking about hire e-bikes or e-scooters: dockless systems are always at risk of being abused by some clients. Here in German cities especially scooters are often littered all over the pavements, in some cases left en masse in places where vans cannot access, which makes life for those staff who have to recollect the scooters a lot harder. I watch such behaviour quite often, in many cases blocking cycle lanes. Some kind of effective regulation has to be found to prevent that littering.

@sausagemcgregory 1 day ago

Again the BBC with its anti E-bike and anti EV propaganda. Nothing about polluting diesel and petrol vehicles which are causing the real problems here!

@MHopLY2028 23 hours ago

In the last 10 years, the size of cars in London has ballooned. Massive SUVs, lethal and really often dangerously driven, clog roads, narrow residential arteries and block buses.

The dystopian huge new Range Rovers, completely unsuited to London and other major cities, are the worst example.

Where are the stories about that? Why could that possibly be?

@petergibson7287 20 hours ago

It's the cars that are out of control and clogging the roads, parked everywhere, dumped on the pavement and their drivers kill several people each day.

@TheMightyAntar 22 hours ago

On the whole, the hire e-bikes are a good thing, but clearly far more regulation over a properly integrated public transport system for London is needed fast.

@beattio 9 hours ago

I love how nobody realised that when cars first started becoming common globally in the 1920s and 1930s people HATED them (including in the USA!) and look and how they took over the world anyway. And cars are objectively worse for a city's overall wellbeing in basically every way..

@johnminet9067 14 hours ago (edited)

Injuries, let me tell you you, crossing upper street main junction with Essex road. E-bike pass red light just this year, 3 accident 2 bus, 1 van all bike passed red light the van accident was serious. And e biker should remember not everybody can move as fast as they expect. Driver after they rent like in a Zipcar, should be held responsible and fine for bad parking as they damage the property of a company where they rent a good and do not return and treated with care, and responsibly.