With hundreds of thousands of shared bikes scattered across Chinese cities, the colorful vehicles designed for easy transportation are instead becoming an inconvenient plague on city life. This is especially true when the colorful bikes pop up far away from cycling routes and end up producing disorderly passages for aggrieved pedestrians.

It's possible nowadays to spot shared bikes almost anywhere and in any configuration, whether leaning against something, half hidden in the bushes or standing in a seemingly infinite line outside a subway station. Media reports reveal that some shared bikes were even found hanging from trees in the Daxing district of Beijing.

“It is getting annoying,” some netizens admitted on Sina Weibo, commenting on photos of bikes parked in disorderly piles in different cities.

According to Consumption Daily, shared bike giant Mobike, which currently takes up nearly 60 percent of China’s shared bike market, has started operation in 80 cities, while other shared bike operators are also expanding their businesses to dozens of cities and beyond.

In response, more and more cities are coming up with new measures to better manage the influx. In Nanjing, Jiangsu province, shared bike companies work with local volunteers to deal with parking issues. The company has a 30-minute time limit for relocating all bikes that are parked improperly, Nanjing Daily reported.

Meanwhile, Beijing has launched a pilot program to deal with the bikes using a digital approach. As most shared bikes are equipped with a location positioning system, Beijing’s Dongcheng and Xicheng districts have set up designated parking areas complete with digital fences. Bikes only stop their "meters" once they are parked within a designated area. The pilot lots will be introduced in June or July, Legal Daily reported.

Like many other cities, Beijing has already established designated shared bike parking areas in various districts, with the areas marked by white rectangles drawn on the ground. There are more than 2,000 such rectangles in the capital. There will soon be at least 600 with digital fences in Dongcheng alone.

As many complain about sloppily parked bikes, others have chimed in to say that if designated parking areas are not evenly and generously distributed, it will nullify the original selling point of shared bikes: convenience. After all, enthusiastic riders may quickly become disenchanted if they have to travel long distances to park.