Dumped shared bikes leads to policy review

A string of dumped share bikes — some of which have ended up in the sea — have lead to one Sydney council to consider creating tougher rules to hold companies distributing them to account.

Share bikes dumped in Manly Cove, near the Manly Pavilion.

A STRING of dumped share bikes has led to a Northern Beaches Council review of its policy as it considers creating tougher rules to hold companies distributing them to account.

Cr Dave Walton has led the charge, asking staff to undertake a review of rules around bike share following Clean Up Australia Day this month.

A number of bikes have been dumped near Curl Curl Lagoon.

After receiving complaints from people and helping the Curl Curl Lagoon Friends remove three share bikes from the water, then seeing a bundle more dumped at Queenscliff, he said it was time to act.

“The share bike business model appeared to be a good idea as a low-cost, environmentally-friendly active transport option,” Cr Walton said.

“However, the business model is causing some negative impacts on the community by causing nuisance, obstruction and polluting our waterways.”

A number of share bikes have been pulled from Curl Curl lagoon.

It comes as a reader sent a picture of a bike hurled into the water at Manly Cove last weekend.

“We need to create guidelines for share bike companies, to make them change their business model so as to not negatively impact the community,” Cr Walton said.

He pointed to other councils which have devised guidelines for how bike share operators can prevent their bicycles being a public nuisance. These cover cyclists’ safety, bicycles’ placement and distribution, damaged bicycles, insurance and data sharing between the operators and councils.

The guidelines include asking operators to collect damaged or dangerously placed bicycles within certain time frames.

The council’s environment general manager Ben Taylor said he was aware of several companies largely basing bikes in Manly.

“We support the concept of bike share as it has the potential to reduce car travel and so greenhouse gas emissions, has health benefits and encourages the use of bikes for short- to medium-length trips,” he said.

“However, the concept is not operating as well as it might, due to a lack of resources being applied by bike share operators to the maintenance and retrieval of bikes.”

He said the council had begun working with other councils that faced similar issues and Transport for NSW to “put in place some control measures, policies and, if necessary, legislation”.

In the meantime council rangers will retrieve and impound dumped bikes.