Lime hire bikes makes changes to avoid Brent Council ban
Lime hire bikes secured a last-minute agreement that will see them change how they operate to avoid a ban across Brent Council’s jurisdiction.
A couple of months ago, Brent Council gave Lime Bikes until Halloween to devise a plan to fix the problem of bikes being dumped by their users in a way that blocked pavements.
As part of the plans to keep Lime Bikes in Brent, they will fund the creation of 200 new parking bays to be introduced in phases before July 2025. In the meantime, they will reduce the number of bikes available to hire in Brent by a third — to 500 bikes, and will need to consult with the council if it wants to increase them in the future.
There will also be an increase in no-parking zones to deal with areas where bikes have been repeatedly left in awkward positions on pavements. Related to that, Lime will have a 2-hour maximum time limit from the time a bike is reported as badly parked to remove it. They are to increase their staffing numbers to manage that.
Finally, speed limits will be imposed on bikes in pedestrian hotspots, such as around Wembley Stadium.
Councillor Krupa Sheth, Cabinet Member for Environment and Enforcement, said: “Since raising our concerns with Lime earlier this year, we’ve spent considerable time at the table with them, communicating residents’ issues, outlining our expectations, and closely reviewing their proposals.
“We’ve squeezed a number of really important improvements out of Lime, and it is welcome that they have listened to residents’ feedback and are taking immediate steps to change.
“This council supports active travel, but safety is non-negotiable. We hope that we have turned a corner with Lime and expect residents to see real, noticeable improvements from now on. We will hold Lime to these new commitments to ensure they are honoured.”
Badly parked bikes can be reported to Lime directly on their Lime website although they so make it unnesseasaryily awkward asking people to fill in a form that is quite generic rather than simply letting people scan a QR code on the bike which would instantly record the location in a short “badly parked bike” form.
Well done Brent. It’s a start of some sort regulation. Hope it spreads.
They should threaten this in ALL London Boroughs. In Westminster, which is crowded at all times, people leave bikes in mid-pavement, where they can easily fall over and hurt an unwary pedestrian.
Who gave all these cycle companies permission just to let riders dump their bikes, anyway? They should be forced to monitor, and collect, the ones not properly docked.
Sounds good, but won’t work; you’ll see.
Most people will continue to park the bikes sensibly, but proper docking is the only way to make the stupid/selfish users co-operate: don’t dock, pay for the expense of having the bike collected and docked. £100? And why not?
Other councils will want what Brent is demanding: the costs to Lime will be huge: let the polluter pay.
Absolutely Andrew. Otherwise selfish users will just continue leaving the bikes wherever.
Where the parking areas are in the street, the bikes are nearly always in the right place. Where the parking areas are on the pavement, they’re, well, on the pavement.
Not a hard thing to fix really.
This is a drop in the ocean for road safety. When are we going to restrict the speed of motorised vehicles around schools for example. All new vehicles should be fitted with speed limiters and City cars restricted in size, more suited for those who walk and want to live in a less car dominated environment. Bicycles are not the problem I am afraid.
Cars don’t usually drive on pavements, or obstruct them. For children and disabled pedestrians, bicycles are a big part of the problem.
Like many people I’m tired of hearing the perpetual whataboutery from cycling activists.
Yes motor vehicles are dangerous things and can cause accidents. But two wrongs never make a right.
A tiny proportion of drivers run red lights. A significant majority of cyclists do.
A tiny proportion of drivers fail to stop at zebra crossings. A significant majority of cyclists do.
Motor vehicles never intentionally drive along the pavement. A significant subset of cyclists do.
A tiny proportion of drivers actively look at their phones while driving. I see cyclists doing it constantly.
Motor vehicles almost never get driven after dark with broken or missing lights, yet at this time of year we see this with bikes every day.
A tiny proportion of drivers drive drunk. I think we all know the proportion of cyclists, especially on hire bikes, is much higher.
Motor vehicles don’t tend to drive up behind pedestrians and snatch phones or bags, yet thieves on bikes and escooters are doing this daily.
Old folk, the disabled and small children are scared and intimidated by the behaviour of cyclists on London streets on a daily basis. Yes motor vehicles can be scary too, but they have a well defined relationship with pedestrians on the road that they mostly keep to. This is not the case with cyclists.
Fundamentally, many cyclists seem to either be totally ignorant of the highway code, or believe it doesn’t or shouldn’t apply to them, whilst simultaneously attacking motorists for the smallest infractions. Cyclists complain perpetually about getting caught in HGV blindspots, or near missed by bus drivers, yet brush away similar concerns from vulnerable pedestrians.
The rules are the rules, none of us gets to choose which ones to abide by and which ones we can’t be bothered with because we disagree with them. If cyclists aren’t keeping to the rules, why should they expect other road users to keep to them?
Good progress but sadly many of the dumped bikes have been hacked using the ‘push method’ so the usage is not registered to anyone. And I suspect anyone jacking the bike in this way wont be parking it up in a bay
If Lime were forced to remove the integral bike stand on their bikes and obliged to have their riders park bikes in established docks, many of the problems with these bikes would disappear over night.