The Big Issue's new e-bikes will no longer be available to rent in large areas of south Bristol. The company rolled out its new rental bikes earlier this month across the entire city, but they have now narrowed the boundaries of the scheme in all of the city’s outer areas, which they say is due to a lack of vehicles to meet demand.
While you can ride the bikes wherever you like, you can only collect and park them in certain areas of Bristol, whereas previously you could do this anywhere in the city. A map on their app showing where bikes can be collected has now cut out areas like Knowle and Hengrove.
A spokesperson for the Big Issue eBikes said that that they have tried to concentrate the vehicles in areas where the demand is highest. There have also been several instances of the bikes being damaged intentionally, and the company says it finds cases of vandalism most days.
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Although most of the bikes can be repaired and put back onto the streets, it still takes time to repair them, and the Big Issue have asked people not to vandalise them. Their e-bike scheme recruits and retrains unemployed and vulnerable people in local communities and provides them with access to support and services to improve their lives, and the company says that when the vehicles are vandalised "that means one person less a month that we can support".
In 2017, YoBike's vehicle rental scheme was withdrawn from south Bristol due to "high levels of criminal damage and theft" in the area. A BigIssue eBikes spokesperson said: “As this is a new scheme, we are still adjusting the location of the ebikes to ensure that we have them in the parts of the city where we are seeing the highest levels of demand.
We have launched with a relatively small fleet, so we want to ensure they are not spread out too thinly. That means that we have narrowed the park zone boundaries in all of the city’s outer areas. “In the three weeks since we introduced the ebikes to Bristol, we are delighted with the uptake of them and the positive feedback we’ve had from Bristolians.
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However, we are disappointed with the level of vandalism that we’ve seen. We are trying to deliver our model of ‘biking for good’ in Bristol - offering sustainable and affordable transport whilst creating job opportunities and training for vulnerable and long-term people. For every ebike that we have to take off the streets and replace, that means one person less a month that we can support.
“We know the majority of people are looking after our bikes and enjoying using them, so in order that we are able to help as many people as we can, we ask everyone to keep an eye out and please report any damaged bikes to us as soon as you can. You can report via our app or by emailing support@bigissue.bike or calling us on 0117 971 7695.”
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