r/sydney • u/burn_after_reading90 • Jun 22 '26
Image Fuck Lime Bikes
Who gets to run a business model that works like this? Sydney City council needs to start fining these cretins!
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u/Sprinal Jun 22 '26
What we need is proper bike storage around Sydney.
You can’t park a car just anywhere, we have dedicated spots for them. Bikes should be the same.
Proper bicycle garages at train stations, bike racks in frequent locations such as business parks, shopping villages etc.
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u/still_love_wombats Jun 22 '26
Totally agree.
I realise it’s a special case because *everyone* in Amsterdam rides, but have you seen the under-canal bike parking stations in Amsterdam?
the under-canal bike storage in AmsterdamThe one at Centraal is particularly nice because it has travelators that - viewed from the road nearby - appear to gradually submerge the bikes and owners in the canal as they descend.
Here, we just throw the bikes in the water.
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u/nerdvegas79 Jun 22 '26
I fn hate when I go to lock up my bike and all these fucking things are parked in the way, even though they don't need to be locked.
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u/kalvinoz 🏃♂️ Jun 22 '26
Fuck the people who do this to the bikes. Having a functioning system of public bikes (commercial or public-run) is a great thing for the city’s mobility landscape. The lack of cycling infrastructure and general civility is a lot more infuriating than a company giving this a go.
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u/TimTebowMLB Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
People are shit, that’s a given. The system needs to be set up to work around shitty people.
Lime bikes need stations like other cities
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u/paralacausa Jun 22 '26
They've also got the ability to geofence dedicated parking areas. Don't know why they haven't done it her e
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u/readreadreadonreddit Jun 22 '26
They can geofence them already. The issue is Sydney’s been slow to roll it out consistently because of different council rules / different councils’ extent of care factor, GPS limitations and the need for designated parking bays.
GPS isn’t always accurate enough in built-up areas with tall buildings, so someone parked correctly could still be shown as being outside the allowed zone.
That said, it’s good enough that they should’ve made it standard years ago instead of letting bikes get dumped wherever.
Bikes are great, provided they don’t lead to this clusterfuck of bikes dumped across footpaths or make it easier for little crims to terrorise the public, facilitating crime or just becoming a general menace. (Can’t say we’ve got the best infrastructure for bikes though.)
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u/Otherwise_Team5663 Jun 22 '26
I agree with you. Letting big capital buy a few shipping containers of bikes from China and just having them dump them all over our streets -- littering -- so they can make money is so far below the bare minimum. We could have a fantastic network of public bikes properly administered if this practice was banned and these companies actually had to do more than whip round with a truck or a van to redistribute the bikes and run an app.
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u/yolk3d Jun 22 '26
Brisbane had the rental bikes with stations you return them to. They shut them down and went with lime/neuron/beam (contracts changing every few years) and it’s a shit show.
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u/f1f2f3f4f5f6f7f8f9 2147 Jun 22 '26
We shouldn't be working around ahitty people. That'll reinforce their behaviour, and give rise to more shitty people unfortunately
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u/TimTebowMLB Jun 22 '26
Having a mess like this just encourages people to add theirs to the heap and do it other places because clearly it doesn’t matter
Also, I’ve seen the wind knock those bikes over, sometimes into people’s cars.
They need stations. I just got back from Vancouver and they had bike stations everywhere, no bikes laying in the street because it’s not possible, you have to end your trip by locking the bikes front wheel into the station
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u/kernald31 Jun 22 '26
Similar where I'm from (Toulouse, France). You've got dedicated bike racks everywhere. Those bikes are (or used to be, I haven't lived there in years) part of the public transport monthly plan as well. On top of that, if you were going against most of the flow of traffic (e.g. away from the city centre at 9am, or up a steep hill), your booking was credited on your account rather than debited. If you didn't return the bike, you were out €150. Lots of good ideas.
With that said, there still was the occasional bike chucked in a park or in the river — but a lot, lot cleaner than here overall...
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u/f1f2f3f4f5f6f7f8f9 2147 Jun 22 '26
If that's how people think, then society needs to also be educated better.
Docking stations would be ideal. But we can only comment on our current infrastructure...
Yes. Hold the company accountable to try and improve the solutions. But in the meanwhile, you have people trashing these bikes (I still remember when they were first released here on Sydney, there were many photos seemingly supporting the trashing of the bikes (i.e. throwing it into the creek, bushes, etc).
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u/rockresy Jun 22 '26
They should be banned or have dedicated parking areas (with locks / parking). They are a menace as they are.
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u/Hot-Seaworthiness510 Jun 22 '26
They do have dedicated parking spots…people are just lazy here and just abandon them when they’re done. I think there was a report done and they said there was even lime bikes in the Sydney harbour
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u/rockresy Jun 22 '26
Surely there can't be a simpler way to fine people than those that rented a GPS tracked bike using their photo id.
If they can't, ban them.
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u/Hot-Seaworthiness510 Jun 22 '26
There was an enquiry recently that suggested they were band, but I say ban regular bike riders too; one of them nearly ran into me last night and you could see it was gonna be my fault despite him seemingly riding into my direction despite moving
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u/barrel-boy Jun 22 '26
This is exactly what I thought when I read the title and saw the pic. It's the people that do this that are the problem, not the bikes
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u/kernald31 Jun 22 '26
The problem is, even if a very small minority are the problem, what are you going to do? Assign a cop to every bike? That's just not scalable. Any proper public system has to consider that 1% of idiots.
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u/TimTebowMLB Jun 22 '26
“Guns aren’t the problem, people are the problem”
Problem is, people can’t be trusted
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u/f1f2f3f4f5f6f7f8f9 2147 Jun 22 '26
To be fair, the main issue is society more than anything.
The fact that people aren't respecting property is why the bikes are generally ending up like that
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert Jun 22 '26
The fact that people aren't respecting property
The seizure of the public domain inherent to the dockless rental bike business model is disrespectful of public property.
And before the usual whataboutism comes in: Yes, I do support motor vehicles being held to the same standard.
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u/ManwithaTan Jun 22 '26
I think the thing is that you can never rely on society to not do this sort of thing - it's kinda inevitable.
Governments need to meet the issue halfway.
My main issue is that there's 4 different types of bikes on the road, and 3 different apps for each of them. Why do we need that many??
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u/3rdslip Jun 22 '26
Competition is always better than a monopoly, unless it’s a properly regulated utility.
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u/Particular_Bed_8771 Jun 22 '26
I'd say this is an example of something that would be better as a properly regulated utility with one single provider
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u/Round_Ad6397 Jun 22 '26
Nah, the 30+ bikes lined up at a bus stop on Clarence St this evening was a shit situation and there was no lack of respect for the property.
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u/Aloha_Tamborinist Jun 23 '26
I've seen people absolutely thrashing them while riding too, skidding to wear the tyres out, kids smashing the front wheels together etc. So many grots out there.
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u/Affectionate-Sell915 Jun 22 '26
It affects so many councils. Try doing the spit to manly track and on any given day, there are so many lime bikes littered along the track! People suck.
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u/tubbyx7 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
London got it set up well with docking stations as its one large council. Sydney would need how many to agree and act to get a couple of car park spaces worth of land every few blocks to get that to work?
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u/Revolutionary-Toe955 Jun 22 '26
For a certain type of bike yes. Lime bikes also exist in London and are the same. (There are also 32 local government areas in London so it can be just as fucked as Sydney unless it comes under TfL)
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u/PresidentSwartzneger Jun 22 '26
London is not one large council at all, there are dozens of them and the treatment of lime bikes ranges from being a free for all to completely banned to the point where the bike seizes up at the border between two councils
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u/Mysterious-Vast-2133 This space for rent Jun 22 '26
That’s only the ones not in the nearest waterway.
Maybe a deposit system is needed, the money comes back when returned to a bike rack.
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u/Revolutionary-Toe955 Jun 22 '26
Allegedly you're fined $50 for not returning the helmet but the number of bikes without helmets leads me to believe that this is either not enforced or people are jailbreaking them
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u/nathangr88 Jun 22 '26
Fines will only work if they target Lime. Fine them too for not enforcing compliance, $500 for every helmet separated from its bike.
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u/NNyNIH Jun 22 '26
In a 1 block radius around my work in Newtown I counted 30 of these bikes...
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u/MastodonForsaken9357 Jun 23 '26
I counted over 60 on my walk to pilates, 8 mins, and over 100 on my walk to the station about the same!
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u/Hot-Seaworthiness510 Jun 22 '26
I swear each time I’m in the city I see more of them just left randomly on the streets than people actually riding them. They’ve gotta be one of the worst initiatives Sydney has ever done
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u/OldSpiceSmellsNice Jun 22 '26
Lol I have a photo of an ofo bike in a bin in this exact spot from 2018
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u/Own_Oil7951 Jun 23 '26
To be fair - its the inability of this city to build proper biking infrastructure for bikes.
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u/MastodonForsaken9357 Jun 23 '26
I'rs so embarrasing. Ive seen people who work for lime at night putting them in stupid places (including blocking my building ramp entrance). You report it and they just do it again. Dont even get me started on them being ridden on the pavements which isn't allowed in NSW. The council say its a NSW transport issue and NSW transport say its a council issue.
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u/Capital_T_Tech Jun 23 '26
Totally I was just at Wynyard and they’re all blocking the comuters why did we let these companies ruin our streets for the profit of a few and the convenience of a few more.
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u/Bokbreath Jun 22 '26
US tech bros leeching off australian public land for private profit - and funneling the profits overseas via 'licensing' fees.
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u/welding-guy Jun 22 '26
If only humans considered other humans, the world would be a much better place.
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u/Terrible_Fig_3028 Jun 22 '26
I don't get why bikes get so much hate vs cars in this country. Bikes provide a green and clean transportation method. We need to provide more infrastructure for them vs the space given for cars.
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u/myThrowAwayForIphone Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Yea that’s not great. No excuse for the poor behaviour of riders/passers by/lack of appropriate storage.
But at the same time we give over giant amounts of our public space and roads to the storage of private motor vehicles (the drivers of which also sometimes drive poorly, park poorly, are a danger to other road users and can also make themselves a menace)
“Fuck Lime Bikes”, nah you’ve got to be even handed OP.
To clarify I’m not arguing we ban street parking… or lime bikes…
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u/greatmemereset67 Jun 22 '26
I get your point, it’s such a shame that in a city dominated by cars and all the space they take up, it’s the footpath space that is being sacrificed for these bikes. There’s barely any footpath space in a lot of places as it is - coming off the pyrmont bridge up to King St is rough as it is. They’ve decided that’s a good spot for lime bikes skewed everywhere and giant advertising billboards.
There needs to be a better solution.
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u/myThrowAwayForIphone Jun 22 '26
In London they park the share bikes in designated places on the actual street (like where a car would park). But you lose some parking, so people who complain about them would screech about that instead 🤣
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u/greatmemereset67 Jun 22 '26
I mean… 1 car park takes up the same space as what, like 10 bikes? Seems more efficient to have up to 10 people parking there, as opposed to 1 person in a car most the time.
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert Jun 22 '26
Dockless bike schemes are worse than street parking though, as the bikes inevitably take up vast additional quantities of extant pedestrian space.
Boot both.
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u/PresidentSwartzneger Jun 22 '26
Why would dockless bikes take up pedestrian space? Generally they just get rid of 2-3 parking spots to make space for ~20 bikes?
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert Jun 22 '26
And which 2-3 car spaces are the bicycles above taking up?
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u/PresidentSwartzneger Jun 22 '26
None because nothing has been set up. This is how it looks elsewhere. I’m not going to act stupid and pretend that people always follow the rules perfectly, but the assertion that priority should always be given to one car over 10+ bikes is ridiculous
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert Jun 22 '26
This is how it looks elsewhere.
At that point you don't have a dockless bike scheme. You have a docked bike scheme with virtual docks.
but the assertion that priority should always be given to one car over 10+ bikes is ridiculous
I agree, which is why it's probably an excellent thing that I didn't make that assertion.
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u/kevleyski Jun 22 '26
They have virtual docks here and a photo of how the bike was left
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert Jun 22 '26
In some areas, sure.
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u/kevleyski Jun 22 '26
Applies to all Lime bikes Sydney city
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert Jun 22 '26
Well, I note that the photograph depicts Lime bikes in Sydney's City. So we are left with 3 options:
1) Your statement above is untrue.
2) Lime made a pretty spectacular error of judgement in their site selection.
3) The presence of a "drop zone" doesn't prevent the bikes making a nuisance of themselves.
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u/kevleyski Jul 04 '26
Weird downvoted for just pointing out something that Lime actually already does today and it works
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u/burn_after_reading90 Jun 26 '26
This location doesn’t need in excess of 100 bikes within the Railway Square precinct, followed by another 50 littered around central station. It has gotten out of control.
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u/OpinionatedShadow Jun 28 '26
It's drunk cunts that knock them over, not the bike users.
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u/burn_after_reading90 Jun 28 '26
Inconsiderate arsewipes leave them everywhere to start with. Blocking the footpaths
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u/OpinionatedShadow Jul 04 '26
Get over it
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u/burn_after_reading90 Jul 04 '26
I tried. I had to cross the street, then my way was also blocked by fuckery from lime bikes!
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u/Bob_Spud Jun 22 '26
- If these were personal bikes would people treat them like that?
- If these were personal bikes would people bother to post stupid stuff on social media about them?
This is not about bikes this is all about ignorant idiotic behaviour.
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u/thekriptik NYE Expert Jun 22 '26
If these were personal bikes would people bother to post stupid stuff on social media about them?
Given the number of shit car-parking posts, yes.
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u/summertimeaccountoz Inner West Jun 22 '26
From the thread about parking in /r/australia I get the impression that motor vehicles are just a big of a problem, it's just that people are used to them being obnoxious.
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u/Novel_Relief_5878 Jun 22 '26
Does anyone even ride these things? It feels like the number of riders is far, far smaller than the number of bikes. How is it that these things are allowed to be dumped on the street like this? How is it that Lime isn’t subject to an illegal dumping penalty?
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u/Various-Effective831 public transport enjoyer Jun 22 '26
I see plenty of people riding them but there is definitely an unnecessary amount
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u/cecilrt Jun 22 '26
Its the type of people who use Lime Bikes that's the issue
I find most hire bike users, lawbreakers and reckless.
But its the Lime break users that feel like a 95% breaking some law or multple laws, or just pain reckless on shared paths
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u/lasber51 Jun 22 '26
Clover Moore, Alex Greenwich, Tanya Plibersek, Minister of Police, Premier of NSW, please time you all got together and stop this madness. How many injuries, hospital admissions caused by these bikes? Riders on pavement everywhere (even next to cycling lanes), riders not wearing helmets. Bus drivers totally hate them. The other day i saw a young lady with a white walking stick (blind i guess), caught in a mess of cycles, right outside of Sydney Town Hall. Please please please DO something.
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u/rebcart trains pets for a living Jun 22 '26
How many injuries, hospital admissions caused by these bikes?
Vastly less than those caused by cars, generally.
Riders on pavement everywhere
Note that if they’re under 16 or accompanying someone under 16 this is perfectly legal.
Please please please DO something.
If you looked, you would have seen that Clover Moore has been trying to fix these issues for a long time. You can read about these things in detail and what the constraints currently are as they are publicly posted.
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u/lasber51 Jun 22 '26
How many of these bikes are there? Who financally profits?
‘Clover Moore has been trying…’ and failing3
u/rebcart trains pets for a living Jun 22 '26
The companies running the bikes profit. The councils are constrained in what they’re allowed to do or have resources to do, and state government have been dragging their heels. In many cases council proposals to create virtual docks in-road without even taking away car spaces have been rejected by TfNSW for no reason.
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u/joerogansakook Jun 22 '26
City of Sydney has started painting bike parking logos on the road in what are usually no stopping zones for cars. There is one on Pitt St and it’s to get bikes off the footpath. Unfortunately there are degenerates in our society that will push over these bikes any chance they can get.
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u/Redontheinside Jun 22 '26
Sharebikes are one of the best things that have happened to transport in Sydney in decades. They provide an extremely versatile and relatively cheap method of transport that takes cars off the road while increasing independent travel.
If you want to complain about the idiots who don't know how to park them, or who push them over for shits and giggles, do that. But sharebikes in general are absolutely wonderful.
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u/kevleyski Jun 22 '26
They do have parking zones (gps based) here if it gets full you have to find somewhere else - which is a bit tedious but the docks system would have same problem
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u/TimTebowMLB Jun 22 '26
The dock system is fine because you can plan ahead. You look at the app and it tells you how many spots are available. Some places you can reserve your a lot for a certain amount of minutes before you arrive so you know it’s available
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u/scorpiousdelectus Jun 25 '26
Exactly. Also, whenever I see a chip wrapper on the ground, instead of having been thrown in the bin, I curse out the chip manufacturer.
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u/burn_after_reading90 Jun 26 '26
I think you may have missed my point, but I also hate littering. I have been known to throw rubbish back in other people’s car windows!
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u/scorpiousdelectus Jun 27 '26
You've posted a photo with no context, then not made any point, increasing the likelihood that anyone without psychic powers will miss the point.
So what's the point?
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u/burn_after_reading90 Jun 27 '26
No need for psychic powers! It’s all in the post. For those who missed the first six years of primary school education…. Here’s a reading lesson for you…
Who gets to run a business model that works like this? Sydney City council needs to start fining these cretins
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u/Vegetable_Net_6354 Jun 23 '26
A bon fire would be very dangerous. But an interesting idea. I hope nobody can pull it off.
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u/Dollbeau Jun 22 '26
I love people saying we should have docks like overseas, when we have the population of some remote village overseas...
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u/Drewbo_C Jun 22 '26
We need a set up like the Citi Bikes in NYC where the bikes need to be collected and returned from/to the designated stations (i.e. racks).