Berlin’s bicycles are a visible marker of its changing fortunes – from the poor punk years, when stolen models were sold openly on the streets, to the startup era, when investors flooded the city with money and a confusion of colourful rental bikes. Now, the end of the publicly-funded Nextbike system is the latest signal of the city’s deflating status. After a decade of optimism and innovation, the civic tires have been slashed.
Nextbike will no longer be Berlin’s subsidised bike-share service, with cyclists taking their last government-funded jaunts across town in late June. The company’s contract with the city has expired after almost nine years, and the CDU-led government has no plans to replace it. Elected on a pro-automobile agenda in 2023, the CDU has reversed traffic-calming initiatives, erased bicycle lanes and is now, against the backdrop of citywide budget cuts, going after the bicycles themselves.
Berlin was now one of the few European capitals without a public bike service, an “absolutely negative” distinction
Chunky and sturdy, the silver-framed Nextbikes have served as the backup ride for many a Berliner since 2017. Since then, the city has paid Nextbike €1.5 million a year, for which it delivered a fleet of 6,500 bikes. Each ride cost the taxpayer around €0.35. Though heavier and harder to ride than a sleek racer, they burn more calories and give you great summer legs. They’re not flawless – the lock rarely opens on first try, and you pay extra to park it where you please – but they’re a robust piece of engineering. There’s something smugly satisfying about snapping the lock, hearing it beep and strolling away unencumbered. They have filled a gap in the public transport system between home and station. Even dedicated bike owners use them for one-way journeys, or trips to places they’d rather not risk locking up their own Fahrrad. Most importantly, Nextbike’s contract with the city obliged them to operate in outer-city locations which might be commercially unprofitable. Half of their stations were outside the Ringbahn.
This is the reason that opposition parties are upset about the end of subsidised bikes. The Greens said it leaves residents on the peripheries without access to cheap, zero-emissions, last-mile transport. Die Linke went further, demanding an entirely free bike scheme – though it’s hard to complain about the Nextbike subscription price of €10 a month, which hasn’t increased despite years of inflation. The company itself said Berlin was now one of the few European capitals without a public bike service, an “absolutely negative” distinction.
Nextbike has weathered waves of boom and bust in the shared mobility market. At one point in 2017, some seven different companies had rental rides on the roads. The hype lasted about a year before the investors realised their money was being dumped in canals. Expensive electric bikes arrived in 2018 and have stuck around for longer, albeit enduring mergers and shrinkages. The company names, models and parking rules seem to change faster than the e-bikes’ unwieldy velocity.
That so many companies have struggled to find a sustainable business model is an argument for why public funding is needed. The only other long-term survivors are Call-A-Bike, which is propped up by the government-owned Deutsche Bahn, and Lime, which is sustained by the Uber empire and exists at the mercy of its shareholders.
Though heavier and harder to ride than a sleek racer, they burn more calories and give you great summer legs.
Not everyone will be sad to see the decline of shared bicycles. They’ve been beaten by anti-corporatists and shouted down by schnauzy change-haters. They’re despised by drivers for impeding their impetus, and by pedestrians for cluttering footpaths. Yet Nextbike’s service was increasingly popular, doubling its usage annually to reach four million journeys in 2024.
Even the public servant obliged to execute the CDU’s anti-bike agenda seems disappointed. “Nextbike was extremely good value for taxpayers’ money,” says Julius Menge, an official from the Senate Department for Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and Environment. “It was a great success. There was hope for a new contract. Shared bicycles are an important instrument. We need more to address climate change.” Even if politicians reversed their decision, it would take six months to a year to finalise a competitive public tender process, he told The Berliner.
But the CDU is determined to cut spending, and not just for transport. Together with its coalition partner, the SPD, they have slashed €3 billion, or around 7.5%, from the annual budget. Berlin was facing a financial crisis due to low tax revenue after Germany’s two years of recession, which was partially triggered by the end of cheap Russian gas in 2022. Even Die Linke acknowledges that at least €1 billion needed to be cut, though it continues to advocate increasing taxes on landlords to compensate for the rest. The result has been painful budget cuts across all departments: €660 million less for transport, €370 million less for education and €130 million less for culture. From schools to parks to pools, every social service is suffering. In comparison, the loss of cheap shared bikes seems insignificant, if not symbolic.
Nextbike isn’t planning to leave Berlin entirely. The company says it will stay in some form, though the price will likely increase, and the service area will shrink to the inner-city – precisely where they’re least needed. Those in the outer areas will be most affected, giving them more reason to return to their gas-guzzling cars – if they can afford them.
Berlin was once a place where governments tried to make things better for residents by providing life-enhancing services, balancing out market swings and curbing investors’ impulses. Now we’re all paying more and getting less. Maybe being forced to walk will give Berliners time to think about who to vote for.
