City of South Yarra cancels e-bikes after operator refuses to pick up dumped bikes

A Melbourne council has cancelled shared e-bikes after the operator refused to pick up dumped bikes. City of Yarra Mayor Stephen Jolly said the council voted six one to get rid of the Lime green e-bikes, that were used by about 0.1 per cent of residents. He said while they were not widely used, they were liked, but too many were being dumped on the streets. “What we said to the to the only tenderer, which was Lime, is you’ve got to control your customers,” Mr Jolly told ABC Melbourne. “We’re getting too many e-bikes just being dumped in our streets. “That’s a cost to council because we have to clean up, the company doesn’t do it, but the more important thing is that makes the footpaths much more difficult for people with prams and wheelchairs and all the rest of it. “It puts us up for a legal challenge too because that’s what happened with the e-scooters when they were blocking footpaths, we ended up in VCAT.” Mr Jolly said unless the operator came to the party they had no choice but to cancel the tender, but they were willing to see if another party had an offer to have e-bikes back on the streets. He said the scheme cost the council about $2.5m and he would be a rich man if he received $1 for every photograph he received of a dumped bike. Earlier this year, the NSW government established a $6.6m program to fund councils and other authorities to create e-bike parking and introduced hefty fines for operators not complying with regulations. Yarra resident Jeremy said it would be better if the council provided space for people to park e-bikes similar to car parks. “But they don’t, instead they complain about shared bikes and then cancel them,” he told ABC Melbourne. It is estimated about 345,000 e-bike trips have been taken in the Yarra area since Lime started operating in January 2025. A Lime spokesman said they were disappointed by the unnecessary disruption to Melbourne’s e-bike network. “Shared, affordable and active transport is more important now than ever before and investments are being made every day to improve access in other cities across Australia,” a spokesman said.