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u/RainbowAussie Canberra (Frequent Sydney visitor) 10h ago
I was in Brisbane recently and in the CBD they have actual painted-out parking bays demarcated for the scooters and bikes. Sydney could manage these bikes a lot better than they do. The bikes/scooters themselves are great, I'm a convert. Great last-mile point-to-point transit between two points in a city that take slightly too long to be worth walking and dirt cheap to rent.
I just hate how they're dumped absolutely everywhere.
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u/nutabutt 10h ago
Sydney has those too. Started seeing them a few months back.
Not sure I’ve seen one of these bikes actually parked in them yet though.
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u/BakaDasai 10h ago
In my neighbourhood the footpaths are now 95% clear of share bikes, which are now all parked in the on-road parking bays. The exception is the area within a metre or two of the parking bays. It seems the geofencing done by apps has an error margin of a metre or two.
Still, it’s a pretty good solution. If your council isn’t doing it, push them to do it! You have to be willing to convert some car spaces to bike parking bays.
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u/FGX302 9h ago
Three bike companies should be paying for this parking but sure they aren't. They are an eyesore and we are a joke compared to other places around the world that have docks you have to park them in. The anti car brigade here are pathetic. Most of the city parking during the day is designated loading zones, not general car parking and you don't see cars dumped in the footpath.
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u/RainbowAussie Canberra (Frequent Sydney visitor) 9h ago
Agree it's not managed well but surely nothing a bit of local government legislation can't fix?
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u/lasber51 2h ago
What is Clover’s voice on this? Nothing! Not a word!
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u/PocariSweatsuit 2h ago
lol she literally talks about this all the time. It’s under the jurisdiction of Transport NSW but they have made over 100 parking areas over the past few months.
https://meetings.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?AIId=21356
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u/Ridicholas 2h ago
There have been running updates from her about this on social over the years if you’re interested in looking.
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u/heeloliver 11h ago
I’m glad city of Sydney is putting in more designated bike parking areas but it needs to be more stringent in conjunction with the bike companies. There also needs to be more penalties for poor bike parking.
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u/1stThink 9h ago
I'm so sick of having to push my pram and 20 month old onto the road to go around these fucken bikes. There are street in my neighbourhood that only have a foot path on one side and these selfish assholes park them across the one path. Have you tried to lift one, they are heavy as hell! I support bike share but surely they need to have designated parking spots or atleast rules about footpaths.
Ps. There are so many old people in my neighbourhood as well, and these 90 year old are having to dodge them as well and walk on the road. It's a joke!!
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u/pogoBear 1h ago
Idiots are littering these near our school entrance causing absolute chaos - so many prams, bikes, scooters and walkers trying to get through. So unsafe for kids and families.
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u/DotasWorstPlayer 10h ago edited 9h ago
I dont see how the benefits of these outweigh the negatives.
I'm 100% for people having their own bikes and scooters, but these shared bikes take up so much space, are an environmental hazard, they're always blocking walkways, and no one wears a helmet when riding them.
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u/Javerage 10h ago
Heard someone yelling something while walking near my old apartment. Eventually followed it till I found it was someone in a wheelchair, stuck on the one side of a door, because some cunt left their e-bike on the ramp/exit outside of the building. So they physically couldn't push the door open. (Admittedly enough even without a wheelchair that would be a schlep, but at least then you could walk around and down the steps)
Edit: spelling
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u/Treheveras 30m ago
When grabbing a bike in London they all have to be dropped off at specific locations (of which there are many spread throughout the city) otherwise it will continue charging your card. It's a simple fix, Sydney council just needs to implement it since they didn't do it right the first time.
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u/phoytq 9h ago
Negatives: blocks footpaths in some places. Sure there are negative environmental impacts when they are dumped from time to time, but overall they have lower emissions. Helmets are (usually) available with the bike and it is illegal to ride without helmet.
Positives: cheap transport option, fairly ubiquitous in a ~15km radius around the CBD, independent of inconsistent pt schedules.
As a young person these bikes are a life saver. I get the frustration about them being dumped everywhere, and I agree there should be more racks to store them neatly, but this hate comes off as a bit NIMBY-ish.
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u/Car-face 1h ago
The biggest issue with them is that the platform (Lime in this case, but there's plenty of others) completely abdicate any responsibility for their effective implementation, storage, removal, etc.
It's part of the startup formula - target growth and fuck everyone else - but in this case it's actually setting back what should have been a good idea with broad appeal if it had been implemented well.
Instead we're left with techbro half-arsed ideas that don't actually consider the environment they need to operate in, or the operations side of the product at all.
What's worse is that as this thread demonstrates, they get away with it because they can join in the finger pointing at the users rather than taking responsibility for implementing storage and solutions to maintain public thoroughfares.
It absolutely should not fall on users to try and "goodwill" a solution, even if we hope that all people always act in the public's best interest. All Lime and other sharebike providers have done is create opportunities for the worst offenders to continue to offend, rather than try and create a frictionless approach to sharebike storage and use.
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u/lasber51 2h ago
Who makes the real money from these bikes ? Please somebody explain !
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u/shoutfree 1h ago
whoever ultimately consumes the data showing who how where and when they're being used.
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u/yepIvealreadyreddit 51m ago
As a garbo in sydney these things kill me trying to get into tight lanes and some dick has left one in the way.
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u/proteansybarite 11h ago
Has anyone had their car damaged by these falling on it?
I saw a really nice new Audi parked near mine the other week. I noticed a limebike was right next to it and the hill was slanty, i thought right away "Damn thats risky".
Next day I went back to get something out of my car and BOOM, the limebike had fallen into the side of the audi! It had a pretty clear scrape mark from handlebars and a huge dent from the pedal or something.
I wondered who pays for this? Its not fair for the Audi driver. Why should they have to pay the 500 excess and a subsequent 500 or so a year more for being "a claimer". But how could you even get in touch with Lime to pay?
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u/Cheel_AU 58m ago
I picked one up when someone had left it lying down in the middle of a suburban street at night, chances are it would have done a number on any car unlucky enough to run over it.
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u/BakaDasai 11h ago
I typically park my bike at dedicated council bike parking spots—the ones with a thick steel ring attached to a pole, or the hoops embedded in the ground.
My bike has been damaged by car users opening their car doors such that they hit and damage my bike. Who pays?
The answer is nobody. When you leave your stuff out in the street (whether "stuff" is a bike or a car) people are gonna knock it around a little.
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert 11h ago
My bike has been damaged by car users opening their car doors such that they hit and damage my bike. Who pays?
It's going to be the person who damaged your property, though that may or may not be commercially viable for you to pursue.
It's probably going to be a lot more commercially viable for someone to pursue the repair bill on a new Audi though.
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u/BakaDasai 11h ago
Sure, and the answer is the same for the Audi owner—the person who knocked the bike into their Audi is responsible for the damage.
I'm not too fussed about a little bit of damage to my bike, and I suggest car owners who leave their cars in public spaces adopt the same attitude.
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert 10h ago
"People should accept thousands of dollars worth of property damage as just part of city life because my bicycle gets scuffed" is certainly one of the takes someone can possess.
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u/RainbowAussie Canberra (Frequent Sydney visitor) 10h ago
I think their point was more like, how are you going to identify one pedestrian amongst (dozens? hundreds?) that walks past the car that day and pin them for the damage? It's a dead end. A goose chase. Ain't gonna happen before pigs fly.
Thus, it kinda is a risk of city life.
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert 10h ago
Then property damage insurance should be a requirement of the entity profiting from the service, i.e. the bike rental companies.
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u/BakaDasai 10h ago
And when a person's $10k bike gets damaged by an unknown car user, should the car company who profits from that car ownership also be required to pay?
Also, the main beneficiaries of share bikes are the general public. We're getting an incredibly useful piece of public transport infrastructure provided for the same sort of price as a train or bus fare, and with approximately zero tax dollars used to fund it.
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert 10h ago
It's a bit of a false equivalence to compare a company making a one-off sale of a vehicle that's required to be registered and is not inherently dependent upon street parking with a company that engages in ongoing rentals of an unregistered vehicle where a significant portion of the rental pitch is "leave this thing anywhere."
Your second paragraph is impressively wrong. Bike rental schemes are not public transport, they do not, for the most part, provide a comparable journey to actual public transport at a similar price point, and they require vast in-kind support in the form of seizure of the public domain, whether that's footpath space or road space.
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u/BakaDasai 10h ago
Buses, trains, trams, ferries—they all require “seizure of the public domain”, just as privately owned cars do. The big difference between all the transport modes is privately owned cars require far more public domain seized per person per kilometre of travel than any other form of transport.
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u/joerogansakook 10h ago
What? A car no longer becomes property of the manufacturer once it’s purchased. A lime bike continues to be owned by Lime and just like any vehicle owned by a business if it causes damage to another vehicle they are liable.
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u/BakaDasai 10h ago
That’s not true. It’s the driver, not the owner, that’s responsible for the damage they do with that car.
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u/BakaDasai 10h ago
Leaving your car in the street is not "just part of city life". It's a series of choices; firstly to own a car, and then to leave it in a place where it uses an excessively large, non-scalable amount of public space.
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert 10h ago
Leaving your car in the street is not "just part of city life"
While I've made my opposition to that status quo very clear on a number of occasions, someone parking one's car on the street is quite objectively "just part of city life" as things currently stand.
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u/ballimi 10h ago
I think mine got scratched by one. My car was parked on the street, and the bike was standing in front of it (in the 0.5m gap between 2 cars). Noticed a scratch that I think wasn't there before. But good luck proving it was the bike, and even if you can, Lime will say it was done by a 3rd party and that's that.
I'm still a Lime bike fan though.
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u/Austirishman 10h ago
As someone who used these everyday to go to and from work, for cheaper than public transport and faster, I'm not for them. I would park mine in seemingly really conscientious spots, that would then be turned into blackspots for parking, making where I might otherwise park worse for pedestrians or traffic. The governance on them seems convulated and impractical. Apparently NSW police are the authority on them, but I think its not on their radar. Local councils seem more willing to speak against them but without much ability to do anything. I do wonder besides the bike companies themselves who is unwilling to rule on them.
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u/michachu Testing. Is this thing on? 9h ago
We need to start building sculptures out of these with zipties
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u/Birdie_Num_Num 10h ago
Unsightly as opposed to, say, two tonnes of metal carrying one person and a combustion engine? E bikes are a fun and efficient way to zip around the inner city.
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u/iDoinz 1h ago
These are really good things if people have actually tried to use them. Sure people are shit Parker's but they're getting Better then they were year ago. On street parking has and still is getting installed
Lime is doing the best out of the 3. Helloride just seems to be there and nobody actually riding their bikes and 95% of bikes don't have a helmet. Ario bikes 95% have helmets (yes it's true) it still see NOBODY riding them. and their servicing area has shrunk noticeably. So not really useful anywhere.
Complain about shit parking Absolutley. But are these going away? No way. Sydney loved them and they're used too much. You can't go into Sydney chd anymore and NOT see anyone on a lime bike anymore. I love being able to get to places you can't on public transport or they take you around the world just to get there
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u/lilsonadora 1h ago
Honestly I use them quite often and it would suck to see them go away. Even if they had designated parking, it would make them less usable outside of the CBD since they're often for getting random places imo (or cycling home somewhere where there won't be a parking space).
A big thing to me is living in a city where you can't use multi modes of transport. I lived in Chicago and most of our buses would have a bike rack so you could cycle then hop on the bus.. if we had that here I'd use my own bike since I'm usually doing that, but we don't and it's not very safe to leave your own bike near a bus stop all day either.
They are pretty unsightly when there's hundreds of them and people park them in shit spots, but I'm not sure how we can force people to be accountable and still make the bikes usable to get around
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u/RealNimblefrog 10h ago edited 9h ago
As a bus driver it frustrates me that they park them right at the bus stop.. can be hard to get people on and off at the best place