[VIDEO] Massive Sharebike Graveyards An Open Secret in Suburbs
In
contrast to its success last year that spawned dozens of imitators,
shared bikes have been targeted in a citywide crackdown in which
officials are taking just about every measure to reduce the flood of
sharebikes that have innundated Beijing streets.
Last week's meeting of the city transportation committee drew a renewed vow by department head Zhou Zhengyu to
continue to reduce share bikes in Beijing after having rid the city of
some 150,000 sharebikes in the four months leading up to January.
But
with the city still 200,000 over its ideal limit of 2 million, more
sharebikes are still left to be moved, no easy task considering that the
bike companies themselves aren't willing to do it.
READ: Secret Beijing Graveyard Serves as Symbol of Share Bike Saturation
And
unlike previous situations that saw sharebikes unceremoniously dumped
in fields far away from prying eyes, Beijing is now offloading unwanted
sharebikes into "open graveyards" alongside roads and busy highways for
everyone to see.
A video report from last week shows tens of thousands of Ofos relocated to an unused road called Guangqu in Chaoyang District (shown above).
Another
online video (screencap above) taken from the Jingtong Expressway
follows a stretch of sharebikes dumped beside the highway as a car
travels beside it at high speed.
Another
video posted online (screencap above) show "10,000" sharebikes locked
away behind a fence at a parking lot in east-end Caofang as a car slowly
drives past.
And
then there were these pics taken before the Spring Festival break that
shows thousands of sharebikes relocated to an underpass beside a
thoroughfare in a small village north of Huairou District, far away from
the urban core and busy commuters.
With a half-dozen sharebike companies already calling it quits, the industry's red-hot financing last year already seems like a distant memory.
Hopefully,
there's still time to take back our city. To remind us to stay
vigilant, here's a photo of what may have been if sharebikes took over
Beijing completely:
Images: Weibo (via miaopai.com), Sina.com.cn
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