One of Melbourne's inner-city councils is getting out of the e-bike share business. The City of Yarra, which takes in Richmond, Fitzroy, Collingwood and Abbotsford, has voted to end its e-bike share arrangement and given operator Lime 30 days notice to cease operations in the municipality.
The trigger was a failed procurement. Yarra went to market for a permanent share scheme and received a single tender, which the council says did not meet its operational and financial requirements. Rather than extend the interim memorandum of understanding that had been rolling since 2020, six years of interim arrangement, the council chose to terminate. Any future scheme in Yarra will need a fresh procurement process from scratch.
Why the patience ran out
Council cited a familiar list of complaints: shared bikes parked across footpaths, riding on footpaths, speeding, and riders skipping helmets. These are the same pressure points that have dogged share schemes in most Australian cities, and they are increasingly the difference between a council renewing an operator and showing it the door.
- Privately owned e-bikes are unaffected: the decision covers only the commercial share fleet
- Lime's 30 day notice period puts the shutdown in the municipality around late August 2026
- Neighbouring councils run their own separate arrangements, so shared bikes do not disappear from Melbourne, just from Yarra's streets
Sources
Details from the City of Yarra announcement of 20 July 2026.