Decision details

2024/674821

Recommendation

It is recommended that the Committee endorse the reallocation of parking on the west side of Chippendale Way, Chippendale between the points 9 metres and 14 metres north of Central Park Avenue as "P Bicycles Only".

Voting Members for this Item

Advice

The Committee unanimously supported the recommendation.

The Chair, Councillor Worling suggested bike hoops be installed in the spaces to encourage orderly parking of bikes.

Background

The City supports the use of share bikes as part of a safe, sustainable and efficient urban transport system. They provide a useful opportunity for people to try riding in our area and to incorporate riding into their daily travel.

Between January and November 2024, there were over 1,500,000 share bike trips in the city, averaging over 153,000 trips per month – or 5,000 trips a day.

With the popularity of share bikes, we have also seen a significant rise in the number of share bikes deployed, drastically increasing from 328 in January 2022 to 4,500 in May 2024.

The City have no control over the number of operators in our area, or the number of bikes they deploy. Recently we have received requests that share bike parking be placed on the road, to limit their impact on footpath amenity.

At present, share bikes are often parked on the footpath and in other areas with high levels of walking activity, and sometimes highly contested public domain. To maintain sufficient footpath space for walking, it is preferable to park share bikes on the carriageway - by reallocating road space needs to free up space for the parking of share bikes (and other shared or private micro-mobility). 

Reallocation of road space for the parking of shared micromobility vehicles has been widely adopted in leading cities around the world. Most notably in London, UK where they have found that locating share bike parking in the road has led to fewer issues in regard to parking compliance and obstructions. Having parking on the footpath leads to more conflict and increases cycling on the footpath.

Share bike users will be directed to park appropriately through targeted share bike operator education. Share bike operators will be monitoring their bikes within the City of Sydney area. If bikes are in a dangerous place, the operators will make arrangements to move them.

Operators provide clear contact details on each share bike so that members of the public or motorists can contact them to move the bicycles out of the traffic lane or when their vehicles are damaged.

Share bike operators have 3rd party insurance and in the instance that a share bike causes damage to a parked car, the operators insurance covers these costs (on a case-by-case basis).