Are Lime Bikes good for London?

2025 has been the summer of Lime Bikes in London – there are now up to 30,000 Lime e-bikes on the streets, and they’ve caused a transport revolution. For many, they have been a gateway drug to cycling – encouraging up to 250,000 people to start cycling more regularly since the scheme launched in 2019, and making the city more accessible for millions of people.

But they’ve also brought problems – with the dockless feature being used to leave bikes parked in places where they cause a nuisance to others. In some cases, the bikes have been spotted blocking pavements which reduces accessibility for pedestrians. One west London council has even banned them from the borough altogether, and there are calls to ban the bikes entirely.

In this video I explore the pros and cons, and find out what Lime are doing to combat some of the issues their bikes have caused.

Bit of a different video for me this, so there are a few issues with background noise. Hope you enjoy it though, as ever let me know your thoughts in the comments!

#lime #bike #limebike #ecycle #ebike #london #cycling #micromobility #mobility #transportforlondon #transport #city #cities #limelondon #londoncycling #londonlife

There it is. The sound of London summer or ‘Hackney birdsong’ as this one article put it. A sound that anyone living in London at 
the moment will be very familiar with. It’s apparently the sound that Lime 
Bikes make when they’ve been stolen. I think it’s quite sweet that Lime thought that fitting an alarm to their stolen 
bikes would make Londoners care. This is London and no one 
cares about a stolen bike. So really, it’s just another annoying sound that 
has been added to the soundtrack of the city. For those of you who don’t know, Lime is a bike 
rental service. They’re in 230 cities globally, and since they launched in London in 2019, 
there are now 30,000 bikes across the city, which have been used for 12 million journeys. They’ve quickly become iconic London core. There are Lime Bike spawn points 
on almost every street corner. And most festivals and events have these big Lime 
Bike farms to help people get home afterwards. Uh, and that takes pressure off the 
public transport network as well. Harry Styles has become like 
a poster child for them. He’s constantly spotted riding around the city. They iconically appeared in the background 
of Charlie XCX’s wedding this summer and Timothée Chalamet turned up to 
some red carpet event on one. They’re a really fast and easy 
way of getting around the city, especially to places that aren’t near a tube. There’s been a few places that I’ve traveled to recently where you put your 
destination into Citymapper and it’s like a 40 minute journey by public 
transport or a 20 minute journey by Lime bike. And they’re also just great fun. There’s few 
greater joys than riding around the city on one. And Lime bikes have made cycling 
far more accessible for Londoners. While London has some decent cycling 
infrastructure, for the most part, you are still sharing with 
cars and other motor vehicles. And on a normal bike, that could be 
quite daunting for a lot of new cyclists. But with Lime, because it’s 
powered by electricity, you tend to be able to keep up with the traffic. And that can just make it a lot more enjoyable 
and a much safer experience for new riders. And I see them as a bit of a 
gateway drug to cycling. In fact, 34 of people who use Lime bikes for the first time report going on to being more 
regular cyclists afterwards. And that’s created 250,000 additional 
cyclists across London since 2019. Interestingly, 73% of women who started 
using Lime reported becoming more regular cyclists after using Lime bikes for 
the first time compared to 52% of men. And I know from my own experience with my wife and talking to my friends who are women that 
they find this isn’t really working here. [I’m boiling.] And I know from my own experience of 
talking to my wife and my friends that are women that they feel a lot 
safer traveling around London. Not only is it door to door, you can drop your bike off right outside your apartment 
building, and that increases safety, but you’re also much less 
likely to get attacked if you’re on a bike than you are if you’re walking. They expand the catchment of rail and tube 
stations, allowing more people to live near a station and expanding the connectivity 
and accessibility of the tube network. 34% of Lime bike users report using Lime bikes 
in conjunction with another mode of transport. So, instead of having a halfhour 
walk to your nearest station, that becomes a 10-minute journey by Lime bike. They therefore reduce reliance on cars and help 
alleviate congestion on London’s road network. And Lime estimate that 2.6 million 
vehicle kilometers have been saved on London’s roads since they launched in 2019. That’s equivalent to traveling 
from London to Paris 3,000 times. And overall, it’s just introduced another layer of public transport that is 
more available than the tube or buses. Now that we’ve talked about the 
pros, let’s focus on the cons. What makes Lime better than using say 
the Santander bikes is that they can be dropped off anywhere rather than 
at like docking stations which I tend to find aren’t always conveniently located. But this can become a problem when people leave 
them blocking pavements or roads or cycle lanes. Ironically, I saw this post on Reddit 
where someone had to move a Lime bike out of the way for a blind person to get past. So, while they’re great for accessibility, that’s 
wasted if they reduce accessibility for others. It’s problems like this that compelled one West London council to ban them 
from the burough entirely. There was a report in the Times that recorded 84 Lime bike users skipping through a 
set of red lights in just 1 hour. That’s kind of a problem with cyclists 
generally though, not just Lime bike users. I cycle to work every day and without 
fail, I’ll see it happen more than once. Some positive changes are being made though. They’ve introduced new parking 
guidelines and the app doesn’t let you park your bike in places that 
will cause a nuisance to others. This year TfL introduced 8,000 
new parking bays for them across the city which should help with 
keeping them off the pavement. If they are going to reduce the bikes to 
being parked up in these parking bays, though I kind of think we need more of them. I live in a pretty dense part of the city and my 
nearest parking bay is like a 5 minute walk which kind of reduces that door to door safety 
aspect that I was talking about earlier and we might finally be about to get rid of 
that annoying hackne bird song alarm sound. They responded to disgruntled 
residents by announcing that they’re retrofitting the bikes 
to get rid of the alarm sound which seems like a much more efficient and less annoying way of preventing 
the bikes from being stolen. Some people want them to be banned entirely, 
but I think that’s highly unlikely. They’ve already become an integral 
part of London’s transport network, and if they can iron out some 
or all of these negatives, then I think they’re very much here to stay.