Photo by Richard Grayson
Modern youths bring a new level of creativity to how they vandalize each other’s yards. Toilet paper and eggs became spoons and flamingos, but then a new way to prank your friends rolled into town.
Neighbor Richard Grayson snapped this picture of a front yard on Vanderbilt littered with Limebikes, one of the several bikeshare companies now in Dallas.
Did the prankster rent all these bikes? Carry them and load them up in a truck? Will Limebike come retrieve them? Is the family happy they can access so many cheap and environmentally friendly transportation options right at their doorstep?
The unregulated bikeshare movement brings blessing and curses to East Dallas, and this use of the shared bicycles appears to be both.
Bikeshare coincides with the push in Dallas for more bicycle-friendly routes and designated bike lanes, and the cycles provide cheap transportation for getting around town. Ideally, these companies collect the bikes from lesser-used areas and deposit them where they will be convenient, often near trails and public transportation hubs, but they can’t be everywhere all the time.
When four or five companies drop thousands of bikes on an unfriendly city for those on two wheels, they end up in places they don’t belong, frustrating neighbors and empowering the anti-bikeshare voices.
After six months of unregulated activity, City Hall will look at regulations to satisfy both sides of the bikeshare debate, but a dozen bikes ending up in a yard can’t be good for those who want the program to continue unfettered.
Update: Limebike removed the cycles later that day and told WFAA the bikes were “illegally placed” and were “an attack on the overall transportation system in Dallas.”
