The public bike-sharing scheme in the Polish city of Łódź currently has just 13 bikes available – less than 1% of over 1,500 that were introduced to the city’s streets when it was relaunched in spring this year.
The municipal authorities and the company running the taxpayer-funded programme, which costs over half a million zloty (€106,000) monthly to run, say that vandalism, abandonment and theft of bikes are behind the disappointing figures.
1 września łodzianie mogli wypożyczyć zaledwie… 13 rowerów. Miesięczny koszt funkcjonowania Łódzkiego Roweru Publicznego to ponad pół miliona złotych.https://t.co/njpVx63iyr
— Wyborcza.pl Łódź (@Wyborcza_Lodz) September 2, 2022
The Łódź Public Bike scheme offers subsidised eco-friendly travel to residents from March to November. After a registration fee, the first 20 minutes are free and the price is just 1 zloty (€0.21) for the remainder of the hour, followed by 4 zloty for subsequent hours. Between 2016 and 2019, bikes were borrowed 5.9 million times.
In recent weeks, however, locals have noticed that the bikes have been disappearing. Currently, just 13 bikes are available – out of a total of 1,520 – according to the scheme’s website and the Freebike app.
“The bikes have completely disappeared, and nobody knows why,” one local cyclist told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. “Taxpayers whose pockets the money comes out of are owed an explanation. I go into the city and the only thing I can use are the scooters lying around everywhere.”
The city has responded to the missing bikes by imposing fines totalling 3.9 million zloty (€830,000) on Homeport Polska, the operator of the scheme, said Maciej Sobieraj of Łódź’s roads and transport department.
“There were certain deficits already in May and June” but “the exodus started in July in terms of bikes disappearing from stations,” he explained.
Łódź Public Bike is facing “vandalism on a mass scale” which has forced the operator to suspend supplying bikes, reports Gazeta Wyborcza. Sobieraj added that over 1,000 are currently being serviced to repair the damage, with broken locks at stations also being fixed.
“Although Łódź Public Bike is recording increased popularity, at the same time we are experiencing many bikes being destroyed and abandoned,” Diana Borowiecka of BikeU, which is responsible for the scheme’s call centre and repairs, admitted to Gazeta Wyborcza.
Almost 700 bikes have been stolen – many later being found damaged – with others being withdrawn for security reasons, Marcin Jeż of Homeport Polska told local newspaper Dziennik Łódzki. The wave of thefts intensified in July and August, with numerous bikes ripped out from stations.
An appeal on the scheme’s website requests that people report abandoned and damaged bikes or sightings of thefts. “Following an unprecedented number of misappropriations, the system operator is working on additional solutions to secure bikes,” it notes.
Options to boost the number of working bikes available include equipping them with an additional chain and moving stations that have been particular targets of vandalism. One has already been relocated, with another 34 earmarked for a move, and Homeport says the city is at fault for placing stations in areas not covered by CCTV.
Some have also suggested tearing up the contract with the operator. “We ordered a specific service. I don’t see the sense in continuing the contract if things do not improve very fast,” city councillor Tomasz Kacprzak told Gazeta Wyborcza.
Łódź is not the first city to have its city bike rental scheme beset by difficulties. In 2019, Kraków’s Wavelo, itself the third such programme to operate in the city, closed for good. Łódź city authorities have not yet decided whether they will break the contract with the operator, which is supposed to run until November 2024.
Main image credit: Łódzki Rower Publiczny
Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.
