Lime bikes block the pavement in Euston Road [Simon Lamrock]

• YOUR report of the blocking of Camden’s pavements, pedestrian crossings, but stops, etc, by private companies’ electric hire bikes ends with quotes from council “environment chief”, Adam Harrison, cabinet member for a sustainable Camden, (Electric hire bike hackers at work as Lime bikes are left all over the pavements, February 2).

His remark that the companies should “do more” about the problem is pathetic. They have no incentive to do so.

But if Camden had a couple of vans going round every day, collecting any such bike not in a marked parking space, they could then charge these companies to collect them.

If the charge was high enough it might eventually get the companies to mend their ways; and meanwhile it would provide a useful income to help balance the council’s books.

Cllr Harrison also tries to justify the bikes by saying they encourage “more sustainable” travel. If he understood his brief he would know this is nonsense.

No one-person powered transport is a green option, especially given the damage caused by the mining of the ingredients needed for the batteries of these bikes, and the current source of much of the electricity needed to recharge them.

Electric bikes can be, if not good for the environment, at least less bad; but only if the people using them have given up use of an even worse option, such as a car or motorbike to do so.

But studies show, unsurprisingly, that hardly anyone abandons a bigger powered vehicle in favour of an electric bike. They’re largely journeys which would otherwise be undertaken on foot, by ordinary bike, or by public transport.

In other words, besides being a hazard to many pedestrians these bikes also demonstrate a selfish and environmentally damaging approach to urban travel.

ALBERT BEALE
Little Russell Street, WC1