Wandsworth Council is installing 111 e-bike parking bays to encourage active travel across the borough. The spaces will all be on-street, with the aim to "encourage considerate parking" and stop bikes being parked on pavements.
The council warned Lime back in 2022 that it would impound its e-bikes if more wasn’t done to ensure they were parked responsibly. At the end of May this year, it announced 58 hire bikes had been seized and impounded in a crackdown, saying the companies concerned would have to pay a charge for their return.
Installation of the new bays began on June 20 and is expected to take around four weeks. The council says riders will be expected to use them where possible, and that once installed, parking on pavements in busy town centre locations will be prohibited.
Responsible ‘free-floating’ parking will still be permitted in quieter parts of the borough. The parking bay locations include Clapham Junction, Tooting Broadway, Tooting Bec, Wandsworth Town, Balham, and Putney.
A recent Lime report called for increased parking provision for shared e-bikes in London, identifying more than 750 parking locations across 11 boroughs which it said can provide additional parking capacity for up to 10,500 shared e-bikes. Recommendations include reallocating road space from private cars and establishing a consistent density of parking locations.
Earlier this year, Southwark Council announced plans to replace 105 car parking spaces with 147 new e-bike and e-scooter bays, to “discourage bikes being abandoned on pavements” and contribute to lower carbon emissions.
David Tidley, head of transport strategy at Wandsworth, said: “We support the use of e-bikes as they offer a convenient travel option for residents and visitors. They’re a clean and sustainable way of getting around and help to improve local air quality. We are really pleased that there have already been more than a million journeys made by e-bike in Wandsworth.
“But residents will know that there have been some challenges, with a small minority of riders abandoning bikes without any thought for pedestrians and local communities. These new bays will help riders to park in fixed town-centre locations and encourage considerate parking.”
> Forest to use AI to review and score users' parked e-bike photos
More e-bike parking bays are set to follow later this year, with the council also encouraging members of the public to continue to report any “poorly-parked or abandoned” e-bikes directly to operators Forest and Lime.
