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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
I used to look at Lime-bike riders with contempt. How dare they breeze past me on their battery-powered velocipedes as I heaved and panted my way up a hill on an actual bicycle? What made them — mere riders — think they belonged in the cycle lane? And how was it that these slime-coloured monstrosities simply always managed to be parked in the wrong place, ever lurking round a corner to get in my way and sully my view of an otherwise delightful Georgian terrace?
But all that was until one balmy evening last summer, when yet another of my pricey road bikes was stolen from outside a friend’s house. Loath to immediately fork out another large sum on shiny new bait, I found myself rather guiltily downloading a certain citrus-themed app.
I never looked back. I have joined singer Harry Styles, the naughty school kids and the rest of the pseudo-cyclist crowd. These days I am frequently found cruising around London on what I now consider a rather nice brattish green electric two-wheeler. (Other providers, of course, exist — notably, in London, the more tasteful and discreet Forest bikes — but the power of network effects is real, and Uber-sponsored Lime bikes currently have that.)
Regular cyclists and non-bike-users may fail to understand the draw. But the truth is that e-bikes are a hugely convenient, enjoyable and cost-effective (as long as you get a ride pass rather than paying as you go) way to get around.
The problem, though, is that while they might be very nice for the person riding them, these e-bikes can still be rather a pain for everyone else. We need to make sure we are having proper public conversations about such quick and dramatic changes to our cities.
It’s not just the unsightliness of e-bikes that have been thrown down — or blown down — in the middle of our streets and the way they are changing the look and feel of our cityscapes. For wheelchair users who rely on dropped curbs to safely cross roads, e-bikes parked in the way present not just an inconvenience but a danger. For the visually impaired and elderly, having heavy and unstable objects take up large parts of the pavement is also a serious hazard. Then there’s the behaviour of the riders which, anecdotally at least, often appears more reckless than that of regular cyclists — red lights ignored, pavements used as cycle lanes and hand signals rarely deployed.
Lime declined to tell me how many e-bikes it operates in the capital, but its fleet is estimated to be about 30,000 and usage is growing fast: 11.5mn journeys classed as “commuting trips” so far this year, the company tells me, a 90 per cent increase on the same period last year. Globally, Lime now has more than 200,000 e-bikes and e-scooters in more than 280 cities. (That does not make it the biggest: Germany’s Tier Mobility is less known in London, but has a global fleet of almost 350,000.)
Such rapid growth is surely one reason for the problems we are seeing. It may well be that some of these are ironed out once the infrastructure catches up, just as has been the case for cycling. London now has four times as many cycle hangars as it had in 2016, and the total length of cycle lanes in London has also quadrupled. Lime this week agreed to install 200 new parking bays by next July in the borough of Brent, after the council threatened to ban its bikes from the streets amid concerns over safety and bad parking.
There are some potential societal benefits to the e-bikes, such as reducing traffic and possibly pollution. Lime reckons that between 2019 and 2023, more than 2.6mn fewer motor vehicle kilometres were travelled in London thanks to its e-bikes. They also provide a way for people who can’t afford bicycles, or have nowhere to keep them, to get around on two wheels. I quite enjoy the equalising effect of riding around on the same bike as everyone else — including the mischievous teenagers, whose bikes’ loud clicking and beeping noises give away the fact that they have not paid.
But more needs to be done to make e-bikes less of a nuisance. The situation could be improved by fining riders more often for flouting traffic rules, for instance, and by giving more publicity to the free cycling classes that are offered by Transport for London. Poor parking of e-bikes should also carry tougher penalties. Some way of ensuring that, once parked, they don’t blow over in the wind would also, in a blustery city such as this one, be optimal.
I confess that there is still a part of me that slightly despises e-bikes (and perhaps myself for becoming so enamoured), but overall I consider them a positive addition. We just need to make sure they are making our cities better and not worse — particularly for the most vulnerable.