The bastard oBikes, which dot inner-Melbourne streets more than hastily discarded Demons’ member scarves, could soon be a thing of the past, with reports suggesting that the operator of the hugely maligned bikesharing service is preparing to exit the city entirely.
The bikes only landed in Melbourne less than 12 months ago, but reports published today by the Herald Sun suggests that the company has already given up on the city and is in the process of exiting stage right.
City Councils representing inner-Melbourne and the surrounding areas – which oBike services – previously cracked it with the company after the bikes began cluttering up footpaths and winding up in rivers and waterways, forcing council services to spend time, effort, and money to clean them all up.
The operator was pushed to sign a memorandum of understanding with the City of Melbourne, Port Phillip, and Yarra councils, which placed the onus of disposal back onto the company, and threatened fines and impoundment for bikes left in inappropriate locations.
Today’s reports state that the Singapore-based company has already cleaned out its storage facility in Nunawading, and Port Phillip mayor Bernadene Voss has confirmed the company now has plans to leave the Melbourne market altogether, bringing this insanely weird 12-month experiment to something of a meek close.
The oBike Nunawading depot has been cleared of bikes. pic.twitter.com/zO55sDQeaD
— Ian Royall 🏍 (@IanRoyall) June 12, 2018
Neil Mitchell on 3AW stated this morning that oBikes could potentially be gone completely from the Melbourne market within a month, adding they’d effectively been “run out of town” thanks to threats of prohibitive fines from the Environmental Protection Agency who, like the city councils, had grown sick of their shit.
At the time of writing, a cursory look at the oBike app shows a number of bikes currently residing in the middle of the Yarra River, which seems about right.
