Waverley Council rounds up abandoned share bikes
WAVERLEY Council rounded up 42 bicycles in just three hours this morning and impounding them, after throwing down the gauntlet to rogue dockless bike operators who have repeatedly failed to clean up their act.
Wentworth Courier
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WAVERLEY COUNCIL rounded up 42 bicycles in just three hours after throwing down the gauntlet to rogue dockless bike operators who have repeatedly failed to clean up their act.
Mayor John Wakefield introduced the hard line measure allowing staff to impound abandoned and damaged bicycles to send a strong message to “recalcitrant” operators.
Cr Wakefield also attacked the State Government for “passing the buck” to local councils, who were having to address the issue within “very limited State Government laws”.
Three staff members used a truck to collect the bicycles from Bondi and Bronte on Monday.
Some had twisted wheels and handlebars, others and faulty steering and seats, many had missing locks and just three had helmets attached.
“When one walks around Waverley, there are bikes which are obstructing footpaths, garages and doorways and there are wrecked bikes dumped in parklands and near the beach,” Cr Wakefield said.
“There are bikes that have been taken off the grid because the docking device has been damaged so they’re just being joy ridden around.
“We want share bikes to work, we want people to get people out of their cars but these companies need to clean up their act.”
Cr Wakefield was frustrated the staff’s precious time was being taken up by cleaning up after private companies.
“It meant they weren’t doing other things like cleaning up rubbish and doing jobs they need to be doing elsewhere,” he said.
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Andrew Constance said he welcomed the council “finally enacting the existing powers they already have to manage footpaths and public spaces”.
“I hope to see other councils follow suit,” Mr Constance said.
Cr Wakefield said Mr Constance needed to address the “State Government issue” rather than “putting the onus on councils to clean up the mess”.
He called on the Government to introduce legislation that would require companies to apply for a license or permit before unloading bikes on the eastern suburbs.
“They need to give us the power to form agreements where they are contractually obliged to fulfil certain conditions like cleaning up and providing helmets,” he said.
When the Wentworth Courier put follow up questions to the Minister, a Transport for NSW spokesman said councils are responsible for footpaths and local roads including cycling and bike parking infrastructure.
Cr Wakefield said joint guidelines introduced on December 22 by six councils, including Waverley and Woollahra, were not being followed “as well as they should be”.
This included the sharing with councils of data like number of registered users, customer service response times, trip origins and destinations and the number of bicycles deployed and deployment locations.
“You can see how poor their operations are on the ground no matter how much they say they adhere to the guidelines,” he said.
The operators will have up to one month to collect the bikes from where they are being impounded in Alexandria for a fee of $70.
If they aren’t collected, they will be recycled.
The Courier contacted oBike and Reddy Go for comment and they did not respond by deadline.
A spokeswoman for the third operator, Ofo, said it was working with councils and other providers to help make share bikes a success in Sydney.
“Ofo has been adhering to the guidelines, encouraging riders to use bikes responsibly,” she said.
“Ofo doesn’t shy away from proper regulation and we are already working very closely with councils.”
The company had enabled 320,000 trips across Sydney, reducing traffic congestion and pollution, she said.
“Not surprisingly, many bikes are flowing into areas around Sydney’s eastern beaches in Waverley Council area,” she said.
“Riding to the beach is a great and healthy Sydney tradition — we’re making it easier.
“In line with our operational excellence, if bikes are misplaced or broken we have an operations team on the ground whose job it is to pick-up in a timely manner, maintain and redistribute indiscriminately parked bikes.
“We ask that the community contact our operations team if they see a bike that needs to be moved or maintained.
“Our operations team responds to customer service queries on misplaced bikes in addition to having GPS on the bikes and prompting users to park them responsibly — this all helps vastly reduce the amount of bikes needing removal.”
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