Greenwich to see Lime Bike bays after long wait
Dedicated bays for Lime bikes are to be installed in Greenwich town centre after long delays.
The bikes have become an ever more familiar site in recent years including these near the abysmal streets south of the river near the Silvertown tunnel bike bus.
The authority are to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding for an initial 1-year period.
The agreement includes an option for two 12-month renewal periods.
Lime will pay £30,000 to Greenwich Council plus £170 per bay which is estimated to add another £30,000.
Greenwich town centre is sometimes a sea of Lime bikes with a fair often left in the foot tunnel. Bikes can also be seen in Charlton.
A council reports notes: “Phase One, which is focused in and around Greenwich Town Centre, includes 78 bays. For Phase One, a no-parking zone would be introduced outside of dedicated
bays. This means users would be unable to end a hire and park a bike outside of bays.”
Four phases
Four phases are proposed in total. The authority states that “A key objective of the MoU is to ensure bikes are parked appropriately, and the impact on other road users of obstructions caused by bikes is minimised.
“Parking compliance will be reviewed in monthly meetings with the operator. A high level of parking compliance from users will be one of the key metrics evaluated”.
Lewisham signed an agreement two years ago with users needing to park in bays – but poor parking remains a common site.
That could well be due to extensive use of hacked bikes.
It’s cars parked everywhere that are the problem, not hire bikes. The amount of space hire bikes take up is so miniscule compared to cars left everywhere, and that’s just considered normal.
Where are the Bays going to be positioned – if on the Road then this will disrupt traffic, and if on the Pavements this this will inconvenience Pedestrians. These Bikes should just be banned and taken off the Streets. People should realise that London is not Amsterdam. Paris has banned these kinds of hire Bikes now as being a failed experiment. London should follow suit.
Also, How are the Council going to police and ensure that the Bikes are parked in the Bays? Most Bikes are hacked in order to be used so that the User doesn’t pay for the Bike and therefore the User doesn’t provide their details when hiring the Bike, and so there is no way to trace the User. And if the User IS tracked how will they be punished for parking outside of a Bay? By way of a Fine which the Council will have to collect, enforce and chase up when not paid? This will be just another financial expense for the Council which they could spend on other amenities. And all a User has to say to get off the Fine is that they “left the Bike in the Bay and someone else must have moved it”.
Just disrupt the traffic. Driving is massively subsidised by the taxpayer so the motorists should suck up any inconvenience. Lime bikes are a fantastic way to improve connectivity in cities, especially around transport hubs like Greenwich.
Easy, remove parking spaces and/ or a lane on streets with more than 2 lanes. Greenwich has plenty of good public transport and hire bikes supplement that in a much healthier way than car journeys do. Creating space for people and bikes is far more efficient and pleasant than cars jamming up a busy area.
Re Amsterdam, there’s no reason London couldn’t be as pleasant as Amsterdam! It’s a goal to aim for. London has excellent transport and would be an immeasurably better city if it doubled down and aimed for more walking and cycling.
@Jon L: ‘How are the Council going to police and ensure that the Bikes are parked in the Bays? ‘ When Barclays ran this type of bike hire, there was never a problem with machines left every which way and endangering pedestrians. Lime Bike is trying to run its operation on the cheap and is allowing a blight. It’s operation should be revoked as should that of the latest entry to the market, Forest something or other.
Enforcement is key but , as ever, always the Council’s weakness.