It’s safe to say that bike-sharing companies in Australia haven’t had the smoothest ride over the past 12 months.
From unhappy local councils, to melbourne’s former Lord Mayor declaring their bikes “clutter”, and users across the country gleefully dumping bikes in rivers, up trees, and on top of buildings, companies such as oBike and Ofo have found themselves at the back of the peloton.
Recently oBike, the most prominent (or infamous) of this new raft of bike-sharing startups announced it would be pulling its bikes out of Melbourne. The announcement follows a crackdown by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA), which would have seen oBike pay fines of up to $3,000 if a discarded oBike blocked a street for more than two hours.
These regulations were born out of months of frustration for local councils and the City of Melbourne, which have decried the bikes for regularly obstructing pedestrians, going so far as to sign a memorandum of understanding with the company in October last year to try and prevent the bikes from “cluttering” footpaths.
But the new regulations proved too strong a headwind for the Chinese-founded company, which has now retreated from the city, but still has operations in sydney. However,…
