The Barcelona City Council today reaffirmed its decision to phase out the so-called “bike-sharing” service—a dockless bike-sharing system—starting in 2027. This system allows users of mobile apps to pick up and park bicycles anywhere in the city.
This decision has sparked disagreements among political groups, which have been unable to reach an agreement on the most suitable model for the city. Although there is unanimous agreement that the service is not functioning properly, the opposition believes that eliminating it is not an optimal solution and is demanding negotiations with the companies providing the service to find a new approach. Furthermore, they point out that reducing the availability of bike-sharing will further harm public transportation.
City Hall points to the discontent among Barcelona residents regarding the use of these bicycles by regular users and tourists (more than 4,500 complaints have been filed). In addition, they cite some very concerning figures regarding fines: there are 3,500 licensed bicycles, and more than 5,400 fines have been issued, in addition to more than 2,000 bicycles having been impounded for being parked in unauthorized areas.
Lime, Cooltra, Bird, Bolt, Donkey Republic, RideMovi, and Voi (the seven licensed companies) will leave Barcelona by 2027, and the private bike-sharing service will disappear from the Catalan capital.
