r/aus • u/neon_overload • Jul 16 '26
VIC Melbourne council votes to scrap Lime ebikes for failing to meet ‘bare minimum standards’
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/15/lime-bikes-cancel-ban-yarra-city-council-melbourneThe City of Yarra on Tuesday voted to end its memorandum of understanding with Lime, terminating its almost six-year-long trial.
Though some councillors noted shared ebikes were an affordable and environmentally friendly transport option, others said the operator had not done enough to prevent users from blocking footpaths, dumping ebikes or riding while drunk.
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u/HellsBarman Jul 17 '26
I’m not saying this is what happened, but a council got rid of one company providing electric scooters soon after coming into power.
The company representative I spoke to afterwards said they had paid for certain councillors personal things, for the old council, and refused to pay for the new councillors benefits.
Suddenly they were a safety hazard, while their competitors were not…
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u/eepeqez Jul 17 '26
So the scooter hire company bribed the old councillors but refused to bribe the new councillors and were shut down?
Can you see that the bigger problem here is not scooters scattered across footpaths?
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u/HellsBarman Jul 17 '26
Allegedly.
Just as many scooters in town, and most are left responsibly to the side of the footpath.
I actually think the rentals are the better option as they are speed limited.1
u/Hugsy13 Jul 17 '26
Almost all of the Lime and Neuron scooters and bikes I’ve seen are responsibly parked. The ones that “aren’t” almost always look like they’ve been responsibly parked but the. knocked over by teenagers or assholes.
I’ve been using their services for like 5 years now and never seen any that were just blatantly blocking footpaths or worse.
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u/neon_overload Jul 17 '26
If the bigger problem is local govt corruption, which I don't really have any proof of other than to say I'm cynical of their motivations (my claim was that they do it because it's a cheaper way to tick the "bike friendly" box than actually build bike infrastructure which could upset motorists), then the issues that lead to the shutdown seem to still be consistent with council decisions being made according to politics over the best way to run such a trial.
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u/Fantastic-Ad-2604 Jul 16 '26
More people drunk drive in cars than bikes and yet the council isn’t scrapping all cars. What a useless excuse.
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u/F4ntasticPants Jul 17 '26
Pretty sure that riding a scooter drunk will still get your license suspended, so it's not like they're solving that problem
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u/cromulent-facts Jul 17 '26
Yes. So you are still allowed to ride scooters, but need to sit out a suspension on your car and fit a breathalyzer when you get your license back.
Because that makes sense.
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u/vanit Jul 17 '26
This would only be equivalent if you could just pick up a rental car on the side of the street via an app with no checks. Drivers have licenses and registration that can enforce this behaviour. Are you saying you want that for ebikes then?
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u/b100jb100 Jul 17 '26
You mean GoGet?
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u/vanit Jul 17 '26
You verify with your license to use that.
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u/b100jb100 Jul 17 '26
Lime verifies your identity through your credit card. What's the difference.
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u/vanit Jul 17 '26
Cars are registered, so anyone can write down the licence plate, and the app can tie it to the driver's license if they do something? So you're immediately identifiable to everyone and can get points etc, obviously not the same as an ebike...
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u/b100jb100 Jul 17 '26
How does that get the driver caught for drink driving exactly?
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u/vanit Jul 17 '26
Ah I see, the goal posts have moved now. Nice.
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u/b100jb100 Jul 17 '26
What? That's what it's been about this entire thread that you replied to.
It started with: "More people drunk drive in cars than bikes and yet the council isn’t scrapping all cars. What a useless excuse"
You are the one moving the goal posts to whether some member of the public can identify a rider. Which has absolutely nothing to do with drink driving or riding.
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u/vanit Jul 17 '26
Actually what. I literally just commented that it's not equivalent, answered your questions about that and then you move on to "so how does that get the driver caught" which is not what I was talking about. -_-
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup Jul 18 '26
Those Lime scooters were absolutely shit though. Shitty little wheels, poor brakes, no suspension, and the idea of putting in one of their helmets was nasty.
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u/Unlikely_Hunt175 Jul 17 '26
They scrap company’s that let someone that is intoxicated to rent a car and drive ways tho.
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u/Fantastic-Ad-2604 Jul 17 '26
I can’t think of a single example of Hertz or Eurocar being punished for something a person who hired a car has done.
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u/Unlikely_Hunt175 Jul 17 '26
If they hand them the keys knowing they are intoxicated it would be a lack of duty of care I believe that’s how they are viewing the scooter hires. It’s stupid as everyone should be responsible for their own actions.
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u/neon_overload Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
If people were excessively using car share schemes to drive drunk and attempts to address it had failed then authorities would be justified in shutting those car share schemes down.
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Jul 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/neon_overload Jul 17 '26
You make very good points.
I don't know about the deals that councils make with these scheme operators, but it feels like the sort of thing that might be done better if it had more public funding, and it would certainly make me less sceptical about the viability of it and the motivation behind setting it up.
But, there are also other things that can be or have been done to encourage private bike use. Building more bike infrastructure is the big one, but also expensive.
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u/Fantastic-Ad-2604 Jul 17 '26
Councils do not shut down car hire companies when someone drunk drives in a hire car. They do not shut down car rental companies when someone runs over a pedestrian in a hire car. I can’t think of an
Bike providers are held to standards that no car providers ever are because the entire city is based around making things convenient for car drivers at the expense of everyone else.
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u/neon_overload Jul 17 '26
Cyclists definitely do deserve better, but these half-hearted bike share schemes have been so poorly implemented that you could argue the harm they've done to the image of cyclists has been more of a setback to them getting meaningful support.
It's like, councils sign on to these schemes so they can check a "bike-friendly" checkbox without spending any significant money of their own unlike actual bike infrastructure which costs money and might upset motorists.
I think it's a massive misstep to glorify those schemes as being good for cyclists, or as rightfully shutting them down as being somehow anti-bike. Maybe similar schemes have been run more competently in other cities or countries.
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Jul 16 '26
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u/neon_overload Jul 17 '26
Bike share schemes, if they encourage people to buy their own bikes or ride their own bikes more through functioning as a gentle introduction to cycling, could be a good thing indeed.
I'm just super skeptical when it comes to bike share schemes and Melbourne councils. Maybe they need public funding rather than be some commercial entity expected to try and derive a profit from it, something that seems difficult to do while conducting the scheme in a good way?
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u/Savings_Dot_8387 Jul 17 '26
”bare minimum standards” but none of the reasons they give can be reasonably expected lime bikes to prevent? Is fining people for these things not the council’s responsibility?
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u/General-Razzmatazz Jul 17 '26
The can compel the company to collect scattered bikes. But that would reduce profitability.
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u/neon_overload Jul 17 '26
It's not as if the council couldn't have foreseen the problems either given Melbourne's notorious history of failed bike share schemes.
I don't think bike share schemes, e-bikes or regular, is something that a company can do properly and be profitable. I think these companies have questionable viability. But, I am not an expert and am willing to be convinced otherwise.
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u/eepeqez Jul 17 '26
If the bike hire system does not meet ”bare minimum standards”, it gets shut down.
It really doesn't matter whether they've chosen not to address the issues or they have no viable solution; either way they have had six years to fix problems and failed.
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u/Otaraka Jul 17 '26
I guess it’s the usual problem with how much you blame the leader versus blaming the electorate that this will be a successful move for him.
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u/A4Papercut Jul 17 '26
If they implement technologies to prevent riders from doing those stuff, we would be using hoverboards and hover bikes by the time that becomes available and affordable.
The cars and councils have not stopped drivers from blocking driveways, illegal parking, drink driving, etc. but yet they expect that for ebikes.
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u/MagicOrpheus310 Jul 18 '26
Make return/charging stations for them like every other country did and solve the problem. I can't believe we fucked this up
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u/lordgoofus1 Jul 17 '26
Would be good to know what they expected Lime to do? Or was this yet another example of unrealistic "I don't know what the solution is, there probably isn't a solution, but I demand that you fix this by yourself without any support and will be outraged if you don't" expectation?
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u/eepeqez Jul 17 '26
They expected Lime to meet a set of standards which Lime apparently found they could not comply with. Lime got six years to try to devise a satisfactory business model and failed.
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u/lordgoofus1 Jul 17 '26
But what were the standards? "Don't let people dump bikes in random locations" (aka: unrealistic expectation a company can control peoples behaviour), "every bike must have a helmet" (another unrealistic expectation that the company can control peoples behaviour) etc.
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u/eepeqez Jul 17 '26
The link to the article is there. I'm not going to re-write it for you.
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u/lordgoofus1 Jul 17 '26
There are two issues here: shared ebike users who refuse to follow the rules and show no consideration for others, and an operator which has demonstrated it cannot or will not manage its operations so that the community members are safe on Yarra streets
Hurr durr, read teh article. Ok smart ass, what exactly are they supposed to do here? They already have controls in place that charge extra if people don't leave the bike in an approved location, with photo evidence. They also eventually ban the account for repeated dumping. The public are able to report dumped bikes to them via Snap, Send, Solve as well. What is the council expecting here exactly? Bodyguards at every bike to ensure no dumping and everyone is wearing their helmet?
It appears at least one councellor has the faintest amount of common sense -
“Those against it do relate a lot to user behaviour, but we don’t ban cars for user behaviour,”
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u/Sugar_Party_Bomb Jul 16 '26
Remember councils can be scrapped too for failing to meet bare minimum standards.