I’m so supportive of this. Lime bikes are an absolute menace.
Round my neighborhood, I constantly find them just lying on the floor blocking the whole pavement. Especially at this time of year, I find them literally every time I walk to the shops and back, every time I go for a run, every time I walk to the Tube station, etc. I regularly find myself picking them and moving them off the pavement because we have lots of families with push chairs in the area, my elderly neighbour uses a mobility scooter, etc.
It really pisses me off that the people using these bikes are so selfish. The designated parking pay solution seems like a fair compromise to support use of these bikes but only when used in a responsible way - you just don’t see this problem with the Santander bikes.
What annoys me the most is probably them insisting that they’re parked IN the bike racks, meaning you can’t actually get to them with a bike that needs locking up. Totally braindead and long overdue for some better rules
The best feature of Lime Bikes is that you can leave them anywhere and so subsequently pick them up anywhere.
Honestly, I sympathise, but if car drivers, even Tesla drivers, acted like Lime riders, then we’d be furious. Lime riders too regularly conceptualise their journey as only impacting themselves, but active travel options need to exist within the societal ecosystem, and currently far too many aren’t. I live on a one way, and FAR too often I have had to stop my car to move one of these bikes that was “parked” mid-road, and another regular occurrence is moving bikes that are impeding access for disabled folks. Ultimately, Lime bikers need to feel some responsibility to their societal peers, and that so many don’t is a recurring issue.
I haven’t actually got to ride one yet. I just keep fantasizing about seeing one where I need one. You’re right in the issues you highlight, but also Lime Bikes are far more successful than Boris bikes because they’re so accessible? I would like to think there’s room for compromise. Someone told me that Amsterdam culture meant you can take any bike and leave it anywhere and people naturally made sure they were out of the way and put away neatly. Hopefully we catch up to that in terms of bike parking etiquette.
Where I lived in NL that was the case too. In fact, we considered Amsterdam quite disorganised by comparison. If every road in London lost two parking spaces for bike racks, and every lime bike had to be parked in one, the situation would be much improved. Ultimately you should have the same responsibility to park a Lime bike you would have to your own bike.
That’s their worst feature.
