{"id":800902,"date":"2026-07-15T02:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T02:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/800902\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T02:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T02:02:12","slug":"city-of-yarra-ends-e-bike-scheme-amid-claims-operator-lime-was-getting-free-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/800902\/","title":{"rendered":"City of Yarra ends e-bike scheme amid claims operator Lime was getting ‘free ride’"},"content":{"rendered":"

An inner-Melbourne council will no longer allow shared e-bikes, saying operator Lime refused to take responsibility for dumped bikes.<\/p>\n

Yarra City Council, which covers suburbs including Richmond, Collingwood and Fitzroy, voted on Tuesday night to end a six-year trial of e-bikes and not award a permanent contract.<\/p>\n

Lime was the only company to tender for the contract to run e-bikes in the municipality.<\/p>\n

Yarra Mayor Stephen Jolly said the council decided with “a heavy heart”, but was unable to persuade Lime to commit to taking more responsibility for the bikes.<\/p>\n

“We’re getting too many e-bikes just dumped on our streets. That’s a cost to council as we have to clean up; the company doesn’t do it,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.<\/p>\n

“That makes the footpath much more difficult for people with prams and wheelchairs and all the rest of it.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Stephen Jolly says Lime did not take enough responsibility for retrieving dumped e-bikes. (ABC News: Leanne Wong)<\/p>\n

“They said, ‘No, we can’t help,’ and we had no choice but to say, ‘Well, unless you come to the party, we’re not going to give you this tender’.”<\/p>\n

Council officers reported they had responded to about 100 complaints made about e-bikes since the start of the trial in 2020.<\/p>\n

Most of the complaints related to dumped bikes, users riding on footpaths, speeding, riding without helmets, and tandem riding.<\/p>\n

“If I had a dollar for every photograph I’ve been sent from a resident of a dumped bike, I’d be richer than I am right now, I’ll tell you that,” Cr Jolly said.\"An<\/p>\n

Yarra Council received about 100 complaints about e-bikes during the six-year trial of the scheme. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Deputy mayor Sharon Harrison supported the motion to end the e-bike trial, telling last night’s meeting that Lime “demonstrated that it cannot or will not manage its operations so that community members are safe on Yarra’s streets”.<\/p>\n

She said Lime was getting “a free ride” when it was left to the council to retrieve dumped e-bikes.<\/p>\n

“They’ve been given every opportunity to clean up their act and improve their game, but I see no evidence of this happening,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Why would we enter into an agreement for an e-bike share scheme with a multinational company which is effectively corporate cost-shifting onto Yarra’s ratepayers?”<\/p>\n

According to data presented to the council, there were an average of 201 trips per day on e-bikes in the Yarra council area.<\/p>\n

The data showed that about 90 per cent of the users were from the local area.<\/p>\n

Councillor Sarah McKenzie urged the council not to give up on an e-bike share scheme, saying the idea had merit.<\/p>\n

“I know the scheme isn’t perfect, there are some issues with it, but I don’t think that is a good enough reason to cease this now,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I think that we should give it another go and re-look at some of those terms.”\"Two<\/p>\n

Lime operates e-bikes in a number of countries around the world. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

Jeremy Lawrence, from Streets Alive Yarra, said the council should do more to make an e-bike scheme work, including bike corrals “in every street, just as there’s a car park in every street”.<\/p>\n

“Many residents in Yarra use share-bikes, particularly those who are younger or those who aren’t wealthy enough to own and operate a car,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We believe the streets are for everyone, and we should be supporting people to use the mode that best works for them.”<\/p>\n

Yarra resident Christine Maynard spoke against the scheme at the meeting, saying some e-bike users “drive like maniacs and then dump them somewhere for us as ratepayers to pick up”.<\/p>\n

“I’m sick of them on the footpath,” she said.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day, they are a hazard, and I will be glad if we do get rid of them totally and the people who are utilising them don’t have the opportunity to do so.”<\/p>\n

Lime has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An inner-Melbourne council will no longer allow shared e-bikes, saying operator Lime refused to take responsibility for dumped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":800903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,84791,99,2467,13729,16861,288547],"class_list":["post-800902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bicycles","tag-business","tag-council","tag-e-bikes","tag-transport","tag-yarra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}