Melbourne bans e-scooter hire

[Rockets]

BBC News - Public outrage prompts Melbourne e-scooter ban
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3w68ywqv2go

[first mate]

Interesting.
 

Lime did a presentation and Q&A at the July Environment Scrutiny session. Frustratingly no sound for first half but second half worth a listen. They would like a Lime bay on every street. Not sure how this works.

[ab29]

Would really like to see the ban in London too

[Rockets]

It does appear that some sober realities are starting to have to be addressed around the active travel gold rush.

[Spartacus]

Lol 

I take its the city of, and not the residents of Melbourne Grove......

[first mate]

Having listened to some of the Southwark Council scrutiny session in July, I discovered that London Cycling Campaign (which includes Southwark Cycling) are working very closely with Lime and Lime are funding LCC initiative. Lime are also pushing to reduce car parking and fund Lime bays and shared use cycle racks on every street, if they can. Presume the idea is the bays are not just for e-bikes but also e-scooters.

There was discussion - not that fruitful- on limiting irresponsible riding, including on pavements and discarding of Lime bikes. It may be possible using geofencing to put speed limiters on e-bikes and scooters. However, it was acknowledged in the meeting that there are problems but clearly an intention to massively expand Lime anyway. They are dangling large amounts of money to the Council to fund cycling infrastructure.

[Nigello]

Car parking at D Hill will be reduced (yo accommodate cycles/scooters?), according to the A4 tied to a street light there. 

[Rockets]

BBC News - Hundreds of injuries from e-scooter and e-bike crashes in Essex - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1k38vrmgy2o

 

E-anything seems to be a problem

[Rockets]

And another one: BBC News - Derby e-bikes scheme operator pulls out of city over vandalism - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgq27q4kk3lo

[melbournemarcus]

On 14/08/2024 at 13:53, first mate said:

Having listened to some of the Southwark Council scrutiny session in July, I discovered that London Cycling Campaign (which includes Southwark Cycling) are working very closely with Lime and Lime are funding LCC initiative. Lime are also pushing to reduce car parking and fund Lime bays and shared use cycle racks on every street, if they can. Presume the idea is the bays are not just for e-bikes but also e-scooters.

There was discussion - not that fruitful- on limiting irresponsible riding, including on pavements and discarding of Lime bikes. It may be possible using geofencing to put speed limiters on e-bikes and scooters. However, it was acknowledged in the meeting that there are problems but clearly an intention to massively expand Lime anyway. They are dangling large amounts of money to the Council to fund cycling infrastructure.

That sounds positive, the more dedicated places to park them the better. 
 

FYI they are already speed limited by law to 25kph

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

On 14/08/2024 at 13:53, first mate said:

It may be possible using geofencing to put speed limiters on e-bikes and scooters.

This already happens. They're all effectively limited to 15.5 mph and then there are extra slow zones where they're limited to walking pace.

The scooters are very dangerous.

The bikes should be required to be returned to dedicated bays - the current system isn't working. There should be many more bays. The council should aggressively snatch up hire bikes abandoned outside bays and charge the company £300 a throw to get them back. Let the companies work out how they want to control their customers...

[Rockets]

Oh joy...London sells it streets to another VC funded company with money to burn desperate to try and get a foothold in London.....the cycle of flogging a dead horse continues...

 

https://www.timeout.com/london/news/london-is-getting-a-new-e-bike-operator-and-20-000-more-bikes-on-the-streets-082224

Edited August 23, 2024 by Rockets

[malumbu]

Cycle and e cycle hire is fundamentally a good thing.  Why are there so many people angry about it.  A shame there is so much negativity.

Now illegal e scooters and fully electric bikes, that is another thing 

I challenge everyone to think of a positive story, about anything, to start a thread on 

 

 

[first mate]

10 hours ago, Rockets said:

Oh joy...London sells it streets to another VC funded company with money to burn desperate to try and get a foothold in London.....the cycle of flogging a dead horse continues...

 

https://www.timeout.com/london/news/london-is-getting-a-new-e-bike-operator-and-20-000-more-bikes-on-the-streets-082224

A tangential point, but between Lime and Voi the branding colours are really full on and when scattered around look a mess. Forest bikes are a much better colour, at least.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

13 hours ago, Rockets said:

London sells it streets to another VC funded company with money to burn

Does the council actually charge to allow these things to be parked on the road?

 

[Cyclemonkey]

13 hours ago, malumbu said:

Cycle and e cycle hire is fundamentally a good thing.  Why are there so many people angry about it.  A shame there is so much negativity.

Now illegal e scooters and fully electric bikes, that is another thing 

I challenge everyone to think of a positive story, about anything, to start a thread on 

 

 

Here's a sort of positive - There is a building site at the top of our road - which is a very steep hill.  A lot of the site workers are clearly using Lime Bikes to get to and from work,  which is better than them driving and cluttering up the limited off street parking.

[Rockets]

That presumes they were driving, what if they used to walk from a local station or bus stop and now they get a Lime bike?

 

That's always been my concern with these bikes, that the majority of journeys (which are according to Lime's data under a mile) are replacing walking - and walking is the most environmentally friendly of all transport modes.

Edited August 24, 2024 by Rockets

[malumbu]

6 hours ago, Cyclemonkey said:

Here's a sort of positive - There is a building site at the top of our road - which is a very steep hill.  A lot of the site workers are clearly using Lime Bikes to get to and from work,  which is better than them driving and cluttering up the limited off street parking.

To correct you IT IS a good thing, noticed builders in our street doing it as well.  I haven't thought of surveying them to see whether they would have walked in the past.   This radomised control trial https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920920308336 reported that about half of ebike journeys were previously carried out by car - but this may not necessarily apply to hire ebikes (surprisingly I didn't find anything on line). 

There is plenty from both motoring and cycling groups on line to suggest that some will replace their car with an e-bike.  Not sure how robust this data is.

Edited August 24, 2024 by malumbu

[first mate]

8 hours ago, Dogkennelhillbilly said:

Does the council actually charge to allow these things to be parked on the road?

 

I don't think so but Lime stated at a Scrutiny meeting last month that they would like parking space on every road in the borough set aside for e-bike and scooter storage. I believe they would fund identifying and marking out of the space, don't know if they would then 'own' those road spaces or lease them or just be given them. They would be negotiating with the council as well as TFL. My guess would be they would fund 'policing' by wardens (also doing their CPZ rounds etc),  and that way Southwark would get a valued money making resource funded indirectly.

[rMattos]

On 24/08/2024 at 08:01, first mate said:

A tangential point, but between Lime and Voi the branding colours are really full on and when scattered around look a mess. Forest bikes are a much better colour, at least.

Completely agree! I would prefer to see the Council propose improvements to the pavement on Lordship Lane, I have been here for over 15 years and nothing has been done to improve it - it is almost impossible to walk on it when it rains!

[raptortruckman69]

Ridiculous that they want space just for bike parking on the roads. There aren't enough car parking spaces as it is, and they want to remove even more and charge for the rest you mark my words

[malumbu]

Maybe just get rid of the pavements, to make more space for cars?  All shops can be drive-in like in America.  Alleluia.  Not really sure you are being serious.  If you are you sound rather angry.  I always go for a ride when I am angry or stressed.

 

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

On 24/08/2024 at 19:23, first mate said:

I believe they would fund identifying and marking out of the space, don't know if they would then 'own' those road spaces.

None of the other bike/scooter spaces are specific to one company, although I think the car share spaces are allocated to particular companies. It seems fair enough if that if they or anyone else want space to park their vehicles on public roads then they should pay for it. After all, as our friend @raptortruckman69 says, there's only a limited amount of road space...

[first mate]

Listening again to Lime at the Scrutiny session, I think Lime want to fund marking out and 'capturing' space on every street, but I think the spaces would be shared use. In principle this sounds a good idea but I cannot see anyone just leaving their privately owned bike standing in a space. I am wary of even leaving mine chained up.

I think it is probably okay to have a space on every street because you can probably fit 5 Lime bikes into one car space. I would not want to see demands for more than two or three spaces maximum per street as that would exceed likely demand. It occurs that Lime/e-bike spaces could probably be placed in double yellow line space. Those were suddenly increased for debatable reasons. However, using that 'extra' space for e-bike parking would still inhibit cars without reducing sight lines.

[Rockets]

And Madrid...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/sep/05/madrid-moves-to-ban-app-rented-e-scooters-over-safety-concerns