空から見た「自転車の墓場」　中国、シェアサイクルブームの遺物

【北京ＡＦＰ＝時事】中国・遼寧省瀋陽郊外の空き地が、膨大な量の廃棄自転車で埋め尽くされている様子が、上空から撮影した写真で明らかになった。（写真は中国・遼寧省瀋陽郊外の空き地を埋め尽くす廃棄自転車）
　中国の都市部で大流行したシェアサイクル事業が残した、数多くある「自転車の墓場」の一つだ。
　打ち捨てられた自転車には、ハローバイク、滴滴、美団など、同国のシェアサイクル事業を独占した企業のロゴが見える。
　アプリで解錠でき、どこにでも止められ、レンタル料も安いシェアサイクルは、２０１０年代半ばに中国の街路にあふれた。
　だがシェア自転車はたちまち歩道を埋め尽くし、車道にもはみ出した。往来の邪魔になる場所に止めたり、植え込みに捨てたりする利用者もおり、当局や歩行者にとって頭痛の種と化した。
　破損した大量の自転車は、修理されずに廃棄されている。都会で自転車に乗る行為は「環境に優しい」と思われがちだが、こうしたイメージとはかけ離れた光景が広がっている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/04/23-12:53）

Handlebars tight in snaking rows of colour, thousands of abandoned bicycles line an open field outside the city of Shenyang, relics of a shared bike mania that has overwhelmed China's cities.
The turquoise, blue and yellow bicycles, arranged in long lines, some piled on top of each other, bear the logos of the companies that dominate China's bike-sharing sector -- Hellobike, Didi and Meituan.
Low cost-shared bikes, which users can unlock using apps and park virtually anywhere, burst onto Chinese streets in the middle of the last decade with investors rushing to fund bike startups like the now-defunct Ofo and Mobike.
But the two-wheelers soon took over pavements and spilled over into bike lanes and streets, parked haphazardly by users who sometimes simply tossed the bikes into shrubbery, creating a headache for urban authorities and pedestrians.
Many bikes suffered damage or were stolen, while some were even repurposed into makeshift barricades when Covid-19 broke out last year.
The problem is a familiar one to cities around the world battling to round up stray bikes, from metro stations in Washington DC to the bottom of Melbourne's river.
Aerial photographs from the suburbs of Shenyang, Liaoning province, show a bicycle graveyard, one of many which began appearing as early as 2018 as tech start-up darling Ofo imploded, defaulting on debts as its users claimed back rental deposits.
Mountains of damaged bikes belonging to other companies have also been discarded rather than repaired, in contrast to the green image usually associated with urban cycling.
The bikes now jostle for space on Chinese streets with hordes of shared electronic scooters, which have also made their appearance elsewhere in the world including Paris and California.
Chinese cities have vowed to curb the chaotic fleets of bikes, with Beijing saying it will remove 44,000 bikes from the city centre this year in order to cap bike numbers at under 800,000, according to state media.