Almost 200 car parking spaces in central London are to be permanently converted into parking bays for dockless e-bikes in a bid to stop them being dumped on pavements. Westminster council began converting the on-street bays – and some areas on pavements – for Lime and Forest bikes in 2023.
It has now decided to make the move permanent as it revealed how often dockless bikes are being used – and how often riders end up being fined for leaving the bikes outside designated parking locations. The documents also reveal that Lime issued up to 5,000 fines a month last summer, apparently for breaching the parking rules in Westminster.
But council officials found that e-bikes may be parked up to 30m from designated bays without the bike firms’ GPS technology registering this as a breach of the rules. As a result, the council is working with Lime to test Bluetooth beacons to improve “GPS drift” issues. It is anticipated that these trials will start sometime in Spring 2025.
About 630,000 trips a month are made in, out and around Westminster by people riding dockless e-bikes. About 93 per cent of rides are ended with the e-bike being parked in a bay. These can be marked out physically or designated “virtually” on the bike firms’ apps.
According to the council, the most popular parking locations for Lime and Forest e-bikes include Ebury Street in Pimlico, Exhibition Road in Kensington, Norfolk Square and Cumberland Gate near Hyde Park, Praed Street in Paddington, Curzon Street, John Prince’s Street, Sherwood Street, Piccadilly, Great Marlborough Street, Baker Street, Northumberland Avenue, and Thayler Street in Marylebone.
Westminster said it spent £945,000 designating the bays but recouped £845,000 from Lime and Forest. A £100,000 grant from TfL meant the council was not left out of pocket. There are a total of 350 bays across Westminster, about 60 of which are also used for e-scooters available under the TfL-approved hire scheme.
A total of 31 parking bays were relocated or axed during the 18-month trial. The council said the “explosion in popularity of dockless e-bikes” since 2021 had improved air quality and the health of Londoners. But it has been “inundated with thousands of complaints about abandoned bikes in the middle of the pavement”.
Earlier this month, the neighbouring City of London Corporation revealed it had impounded about 100 Lime and Forest bikes that were blocking pavements - and only released them after £25,000 in fines were paid. Research from CoMoUK shows that around half of people who hire e-bikes already cycle regularly and half are taking it up for the first time or returning to cycling after a break of a year or more.
Westminster is now proposing to make 177 physical bays permanent parking spaces for hire e-bikes. It also has plans to consult on further expanding its network. Fines in Westminster start at £10 and increase incrementally, depending on the number of breaches. Riders can have their accounts shut for repeated breaches.
Riders are required to complete an “end of ride” check and take a photo of where the bike is parked. Lime plans to start to use AI to determine whether its bikes are being parked in a designated bay. Actor Timothee Chalamet said he was fined £65 by Lime after failing to park aLime bike properly after cycling to the London premiere of A Complete Unknown - though Lime suggested he may have used “artistic licence” in telling the story, as it issues fines to first offenders and does not charge as much as £65.
There are an estimated 2,878 dockless e-bikes in Westminster, each of which is used for an average of six times a day. “Rangers” employed by the bike firms reposition the bikes 160,000 times a month, often ahead of complaints about bad parking. The council has used its powers under the Highways Act (1980) to seize abandoned bikes which it deems to be an “imminent danger” to public safety.
Transport for London and London Councils, which represents the 33 boroughs, were trying to develop a pan-London scheme that would have set rules for dockless hire bikes and hire e-scooters. However this work has been shelved after the Government announced in December that the English Devolution Bill would provide additional powers for local transport authorities to regulate on-street “micromobility” schemes.
It is thought that TfL will become the licensing authority for dockless e-bikes. The council said that without the parking bays, the problem of e-bikes being abandoned on pavements “would undoubtedly be worse”. “The option of reverting to dockless bike companies operating a total free-floating parking model with no parking infrastructure and designated parking spaces is not recommended, as it would be ineffective in addressing the issues caused by irresponsible dockless bike parking,” council documents said.
“It would also not address the safety issues this causes for people with mobility and visual impairments. It is therefore advised that the bay-based approach is adopted on a permanent basis, as this approach will meet the demands of the fast-changing regulatory environment of micromobility and continue to prioritise footway for pedestrians.”.
