“Unacceptable numbers” of Lime and Forest e-bikes are being deployed in London, according to the capital’s transport chiefs.
They say that in some areas the number of dockless hire bikes being made available by the private firms breaches the maximum agreed with borough councils.
The intervention follows the Government’s announcement on Monday that it will give London mayor Sadiq Khan and Transport for London the power to issue fines to tackle the “Wild West” scourge of bikes being abandoned on pavements.
There is no official total of the number of battery-powered hire bikes in London but Lime, which dominates the market, has denied suggestions that it has as many as 40,000. It says the exact number of bikes it has in London is commercially confidential.
Forest says it has about 15,000 e-bikes.
These dockless bikes are different to TfL’s 12,000 Santander-sponsored “Boris bikes”, which have to be docked in bike racks – preventing them from being abandoned on pavements.
A letter to Lime and Forest by Will Norman, the mayor’s walking and cycling commissioner, and Cllr Kieron Williams, London Councils’ executive member for transport, seeks their “public commitment to fully address the issues being caused by problematic parking of your dockless e-bikes, and to ensure no location in our city has to deal with unsustainable numbers of bikes”.
The letter says that “dockless e-bikes are an important part of London’s transport network” but are not working for all Londoners.
The firms were told: “Your bikes are frequently found parked on pavements, roads, and crossings in a way that negatively impacts people across our city, especially elderly and disabled Londoners.
“In many parts of our city, the numbers of dockless e-bikes are now exceeding the fleet caps you have agreed with councils, and we are increasingly concerned that you are deploying your bikes in unacceptable numbers in some locations.
“We recognise that you have made some welcome progress: improving instructions for riders, taking action to make it harder to ‘hack’ bikes, and working with us to install dedicated parking bays in many parts of the city.
“We know that in other cities you have deployed other technologies and resources to tackle these issues but have not yet done so yet in London: we need action on responsible parking in London now.
“The current situation where dockless e-bikes can be operated without permission or oversight from either councils or TfL is clearly not working.”
The firms are asked to work with TfL and councils to “tackle poor parking and oversaturation”, comply with fleet caps and publish action plans for tacking anti-social parking by their customers.
The hope is that the new powers, in the Government’s English Devolution White Paper, will enable a city-wide set of rules to be put in place.
At present, Lime and Forest – which together operate in 22 of the 33 London boroughs – can strike voluntary deals with councils, often relating to the provision of bike parking bays and limits on the number of bikes deployed in each area.
Hal Stevenson, director for policy at Lime, UK and Ireland, said: “Lime is committed to working with TfL, City Hall and our 17 partner boroughs to improve the management of our e-bike service and ensure it works for all Londoners.
"We are implementing a new action plan to make these changes as soon as possible. This will include increasing the size of our on the ground team, and further investment in building more bike parking infrastructure. We will be sharing more details on this in the New Year.
"We are focused on working together to ensure that shared e-bikes can continue to play a vital role helping London meet its ambitious active and sustainable travel targets, without causing any hazards or obstructions while doing so."
Last month, TfL announced plans to crack down on badly-parked dockless bikes on Red Routes.
Critics say the Government’s proposals will take years to implement – but action is required now.
Cllr Victor Chamberlain, leader of the opposition Lib-Dems on Southwark council, said: “Whilst these changes are welcome to help stop bikes blocking pavements, they will take time to implement.
“When we met with Lime they confirmed they were very happy to roll out a number of Liberal Democrat suggestions such as mobile parking bays, but cannot make such changes without the council's agreement.”
Alex Berwin, head of policy at Forest, said: “It’s true that demand for bikes and therefore, fleet sizes have increased beyond the level of parking infrastructure available and we share the concerns of boroughs as there is a clear lack of regulation around fleet sizes that is leading to unsafe on-street obstructions in some cases.
"Forest is actively reducing its fleet in the busiest boroughs and employing more Forest Guardians.
"We will continue to work closely with all our partner boroughs and TfL to ensure that the city can fully realise the benefits of dockless bikes in a manner that works for everyone."
