10,000 impounded bikes look like abstract art

BY YVETTE TAN

It may look like a painting, but this is actually what 10,000 bicycles being dumped into one space looks like.

Tens of thousands of shared bikes have been impounded by authorities, and left at a playground in the Chinese city of Hefei.

SEE ALSO: People stole nearly all of the bikes belonging to a shared-bike startup, so it had to close down

It's simply the latest chapter in the recent shared bike phenomenon, which has seen a surge of bikes scattered around cities from service providers which hope users will hop on one of theirs.

In many of these cities, the bikes tread the line between public and private good, in a way — some cities see them as littering the sidewalk, and impound them, while others have agreed to let the bikes be, in hopes of encouraging green transportation.

According to a report by Chinese state media Global Times, the playground was originally owned by a school that had later vacated the premises.

IMAGE: BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

The empty grounds later became the de facto dumping ground for authorities, who had seized discarded bikes from the main roads and had nowhere else to put them.

Bikes which were found violating parking rules were also detained and dumped into these grounds. 

According to the Global Times, there are at least 10,000 bikes dumped in this bicycle graveyard.

IMAGE: BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

IMAGE: BARCROFT MEDIA VIA GETTY IMAGES

People online found it pretty ironic that the shared bikes were causing so much damage.

"Shared bikes are supposed to promote sharing and save the environment, but then it's caused this instead," said one user on Weibo.

"This is a waste of resources," said another.

"No wonder I can't find any shared bikes in Hefei," one quipped.

According to the Global Times, Hefei's City Urban Management Bureau will begin returning the bikes to the respective companies.

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