I am standing on a street corner in East London at midnight, watching the neon green blur of a Lime bike weave through stationary traffic. The rider isn’t wearing a helmet, and they certainly aren’t following the traditional etiquette of the road. To the residents of the luxury apartments lining this street, this is a nuisance—a metallic eyesore discarded on the pavement, a silent threat to their quiet evening stroll. But from where I’m standing, it looks like the only remaining form of urban agency for a demographic that has been stripped of everything else.

We have spent decades building a city that is hostile to the young and the mobile. Public transport is a sweltering, expensive ordeal; the Tube is a subterranean furnace in July, and the buses are held hostage by a road network that has ground to a halt. Owning a car is a ruinous financial burden, and owning a home with a secure garage for a private bicycle is, for many, a statistical impossibility. Into this vacuum of mobility stepped the rental e-bike. It is not just a tool for getting from A to B; it is a rejection of the static, expensive city.

The complaints against these riders—that they are reckless, that they park haphazardly, that they treat the road like a playground—are often just thinly veiled class anxieties. Those who grumble about a bike blocking a sidewalk rarely have much to say about the two-ton SUVs that take up three times the space while idling in a cycle lane. The anger is directed at the perceived lawlessness of the rider, but what is really being targeted is their freedom.

When you are priced out of the property market and squeezed by the cost of living, the ability to whir through a tree-lined street at 1 AM, feeling a breeze that hasn’t been recycled by a ventilation system, is a rare moment of sovereignty. The electric motor provides a literal lift, a mechanical advantage in a world that feels increasingly uphill. It is an impulsive, chaotic way to travel, yes, but that is precisely the point. In a city where every square inch is monetized and every movement is tracked, the Lime bike offers a fleeting, battery-powered escape. We should stop treating these riders as vandals and start recognizing them as the last true citizens of the street. If the bikes are in the way, perhaps it’s because we haven’t left enough room for the people who actually live here.