Clogging public racks, abandoned bikes and tripping hazards — the legacy of Adelaide’s bicycle share scheme

COMPLAINTS about Adelaide’s dockless bike share operators — ofo and oBike — reveal many of their bicycles are occupying public racks, causing a tripping hazard and are abandoned on streets.

• Survey reveals cyclists’ biggest dislikes with riding in Adelaide
• Cyclists giving up riding in SA
• Adelaide’s cycle city dream fading away
• Sunday Mail launches agenda-setting Your Say, SA survey
• Your Say SA survey early results

COMPLAINTS about Adelaide’s dockless bike share operators ofo and oBike reveal many of their bicycles are occupying public racks, falling over and causing a tripping hazard and are abandoned on streets — with one bike left on Stanley St in North Adelaide for three weeks.

In one case, a severely vision-impaired woman has been walking into and falling over dockless bikes parked on tactile surfaces for the blind.

Eighteen complaints in total were received and Adelaide City Council has been referring them to the operators.

ofo has reported one stolen bike and two bikes damaged beyond repair to police out of its fleet of 100.

But oBike Australia, which had its bikes removed from Melbourne’s Yarra River earlier this year, has had just one of its 101 bike fleet damaged in Adelaide.

oBike Australia head Lim Chee Ping told advertiser.com.au that people in Adelaide have “been really gracious and civic-minded”.

“It could be due to a number of factors,” Ms Chee Ping says.

“We learnt from our experience in Melbourne, and decided to do things a bit differently such as deploying a small number of bikes to test out public sentiment and determine needs.

“Or it could be that people in Adelaide are more receptive to new solutions in solving their transportation needs.”

ofo Australia head of strategy Scott Walker said only one complaint — about several ofo bikes left on the footpath by shop — was attributed to ofo.

He said the feedback they have received about their bikes was “overwhelmingly positive”.

“Our team has had both proactive and reactive capacity from day one and this has meant that ofo has not experienced the same number of complaints as the other operator in town, and the small number of questions about user parking of our bikes have been resolved in a matter of hours,” Mr Walker said.

South Australians are making 1000-1500 trips a week combined by the operators, the majority cycling around the Rundle Mall precinct, Central Markets, Gouger St and Hutt St.

The council’s administration says both operators have stated a “high demand” since they began operating in early October “warrants them to increase the number of bikes available to users”.

“We have requested both dockless bike share operators maintain their existing number of bikes, which they have agreed to and that any expansion is mutually agreed by the City of Adelaide and the operators, evidenced by hire demand,” administration stated.

Adelaide City Council is the first in Australia to give bike-share operators a permit and put guidelines in place.

The free “on-street activity permit” expires for both operators in March 2018, and although the council has not been contacted by any new operators. Currently, the council has powers to reject permit applications if there is “deemed to be enough of this type of activity undertaken”.

Tomorrow night (Tuesday) the council will move to add four additional conditions to the permit including:

— That biannual reviews about bike fleet expansion will be held and only occur when mutually agreed on

— All bikes are to be GPS equipped to enable their exact location to be tracked and monitored at all times

— Response time frames to be implemented for bike complaints

— Operators report monthly about bike locations, trip data, vandalism and complaints