If a spaceship were to land in the Inner West today, the aliens would assume they’d landed at the tail end of some horrible war between rival bike species, such are the twisted, mangled bike bones strewn in every conceivable walkway, alleyway and waterway.
The Inner West Council has had enough of this, and after first proposing a regulation scheme, they have gone full fuck-you and started a blitz to impound these abandoned bikes.
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“In the absence of action from share bike operators, Council is undertaking a bike blitz to remove dangerous and badly parked bicycles throughout the Inner West,” Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne said.
“We’ve proposed a simple set of guidelines for the operators, but they haven’t done enough to lift their game.
“Having offered them the carrot, we now have to use the stick.
“Operators have up to 28 days to collect their bikes from Council. After which time, the bikes become Council’s responsibility
“We know operators haven’t been collecting bikes that have been impounded elsewhere.
“Rather than putting them into land fill, we will be looking to repurpose unclaimed bikes and give them to homeless and disadvantaged people.”
Inner West Council is using powers under the Impounding Act to seize the bikes.
The companies will be charged impound fees of $80 “to prepare the notice of impounding”, and “$65 per staff member, per hour to take the bikes to a secure Council depot”, plus a $16 daily storage fee.
Things just got very interesting!
