cooker

You and a lot of other people!

Doohickie

Also, this.
Checkout the bike share program now. What a waste! — at Cmc Recycling American.


So to the OP: I appreciate the thought behind dockless bikeshare. It seems like it could be a good idea. But the bikeshare companies have seen enough of this that they know this will happen. They need to account for it in their business model. Until they do, bikeshare is a terrible idea.

noglider 

Yeah it seemed like a good idea when I first heard about it, but I haven't heard of a dockless system that doesn't have that problem. If it can work, I'll need to see a track record, and I don't think there is one.

I don't know how to put docked systems in places with low population density, but I hope we figure that out. Some city council people in NYC are calling for a subsidy to make it happen. So far, no government money has gone into Citi Bike.

linberl

It may be different depending upon the City, but at least in my area dockless matters because there are exclusivity agreements which do not allow all the contiguous cities to use the same services. So if you rent brand x bike in one city and ride to another - you CANNOT dock it!!!! One way trips are impossible as a result. So until and unless fully regional docked bike share happens ( and I don't see individual citites giving up their bargaining power to do that) the only way to truly get people out of cars and onto share bikes is with a dockless system. Keep in mind in my area there are 9 cities within a less than 15 mile radius. You can literally ride through or to any of them on a daily basis.

noglider 

That's a good point, @linberl. The alternative is to allow inter-city docking. There are plenty of hurdles to that. But you need to solve this somehow. As you know, NYC is an enormous city. There are lots of people who rarely or never leave the city limits.

linberl

Yes, NYC is a totally different scenario. Here (Bay Area) it is as if each "borough" in NY was a separate City with separate laws and contracts. Inter-city docking isn't possible unless there are docks to drop the bikes at - and many cities don't allow them or have a contract with a different provider. It is utterly stupid imo. In my area, they clearly need regional solutions, not city-wide providers. And if/when they finish the Bay Bridge to SF trail, that's going to open up another giant can of worms as folks bike from the East Bay to the City (which will, no doubt, have contracts with completely different providers).

I-Like-To-Bike

How much does it cost to rent dockless "sharebike" to ride the distance and time necessary to get to/from East Bay-SF? How many people/day do you really believe will rent a bike to ride back and forth to/from the East Bay and SF?

I expect the people who are inspired enough to ride a bicycle over that span/distance often would ride their own bike and could easily pay for it with the money NOT spent on daily rentals for a heavy bike that may or may not fit them.

noglider 

But frequent bike thefts add to that cost considerably.

noglider 

What kind of distances are you speaking of, @linberl? Bike share bikes are very heavy, to withstand the kinds of use they get. Citi Bike bikes are around 50 lbs. The vast majority of trips are short, probably with an average trip length of well under three miles. I sometimes ride them 6.5 miles, and let me tell you, it's pretty annoying. Not many people will want to do that. So docked or dockless is one problem, but another question is how to provide the service with a more pleasant bike. The bikes we have are the right type for the job, but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy it. I do enjoy it for the first mile.

linberl

Tourists will use the share bikes to bike the Bridge. They do it now to Treasure Island and up the incline (I wouldn't want to do it on a behemoth bike) because most tourists don't take their bikes with them. For a novice rider, it's maybe half an hour from the base of the Bridge on the east bay side to TI. I'm guessing maybe an hour ride to the City once it's finished. I also see parents riding Lime Bikes up to TI along with their kids who have their own bikes; it gives non-bike owning parents a way to infrequently ride with their kids.
You see heavy tourist bikes on the GG bridge all the time. Again, I wouldn't do it. So if my choice was to ride the bridge path to the City where I couldn't take my folding bike inside to my final destination, I just wouldn't do it, due to theft concerns. But I'd definitely do it round trip as a beautiful and fun exercise ride =). And most places are okay with my bike folded up; I'd have to check obviously in advance. One thing I for sure would do is bike to the ball games - they have secure supervised bike parking for free at AT&T!!!

I-Like-To-Bike

Yes it would. The question remains how many people are likely to routinely ride (and pay for) a heavy rental bicycle to travel everyday from one city to another, or any relatively long distance (more than "the last mile") or hilly terrain as suggested by the poster from SF? More than an insignificant sliver of the population? I doubt it.

linberl

Some cities are starting to get share e-bikes so that solves the problems with hills. And in the Bay Area, you can go from "city to city" in 5 minutes on a bike, lol. I regularly ride an exercise loop that is only 18 miles round trip and it takes me through 8 different cities! It all depends on where you live...

Mobile 155

The question still remains. How do you solve the city to city limitations of dock-less rental bikes when each city has to have a separate contract? Without such a solution you end up with bikes abandoned like empty shopping carts left all over town. And in San Francisco you get the double whammy in that the city is also the county and the other cities are in different counties. In California the County audits the city budget and monitors their taxes. The counties don't play well together.

linberl

In the Bay Area, it needs a regional solution. Or at least cities that are not run by total morons. While Oakland and Emeryville also have exclusivity contracts with Ford, they do NOT enforce them regarding Lime bike. So as long as you ride "through" Berkeley (which enforces their Ford exclusivity contract with fines) and into those two other cities, you can use a Lime bike. You just can't drop it off in Berkeley. Yes, it is stupid. Eventually, some accommodation will be made I am sure; Lyft and Uber manage to traverse all city and county limits. Once share bikes are pretty much all electric, the concept of city limits will become even less valid in denser areas. Berkeley signed up for that exclusive agreement in exchange for a number of concessions (cheap rates for low income riders, financial benefits to the city, etc.). It was short-sighted negotiation and I suspect that cities that entered those kinds of contracts will find themselves renegotiating over time. Motivate wanted that contract to ensure they would recoup their investments; if the see more $ down the road by allowing riders to cross boundaries, they'll adapt. If dockless bikes/e-bikes show better financial profit than docked, Ford will reconsider their concept. The market will eventually straighten it out, I believe.

I-Like-To-Bike

I am sure that you are correct about that. I recommend that you hold on to your own bicycle; do not sell it in anticipation of a suitable/economical/practical dockless bikeshare substitute if you want to keep riding your regular 18 mile loop (or any other distance or hilly route) though the SF area for the foreseeable future.

linberl

I'm 100% bike-dependent so would never sell my bike. But even for someone like me, bike share has an occasional use.

tandempower

I have taken a bus to a city that has docked bike-shared several times and wished that I could take one of those bikes and ride it to my destination and then leave it without worrying about where to dock it. If you are unfamiliar with an area and where the bike docks are, dockless sharing is much simpler, even if there are rules about where and how you can park (i.e. against a wall, locked to a sign-post, etc.) Maybe I would be foolish to assume I could find a wall or a signpost at my destination to lock to, but I would.

Mobile 155

So it is your contention that:

1. The city and county governments will agree to work together to help a private concern by sharing the business tax revenue generated between areas?

2. That people will not just drop a bike off in a city that doesn't have a contract with the dock-less bike company?

3. The tax payers will not be left on the hook for the clean up of abandoned bikes?

4. Local governments can work out all of this because they have done so well in the past?


I have no problem with riding bikes I put on between 5000 and 8000 miles a year on mine. What I have a problem with is a bad business model that doesn't take into account human nature. It is not our responsibility to solve the problem for the business it is their problem to solve before offering the service. IMHO. Still it will remain to be seen if in the long run they can survive the competition and the politics and still turn a profit. They may find a way to make it work but even in Amsterdam people simply leave a bar at night, take a bike that may look like theirs and toss it in the canal when they are done. This from a bike culture. Color me doubtful.

Many bicycles end up in the canals of Amsterdam


And from closer to home a thoughtful perspective.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovat...dallas-n866351

noglider 

That's the wrong question. A small investment that serves a sliver of the population could pay off quickly, considering that car travel costs both the user and the infrastructure more than bike travel. And enabling a new mode for a sliver encourages that sliver to grow. Rather than ask how big the sliver is, ask what the slope of the growth rate is. For example, NYC is a far cry from Amsterdam where a huge fraction of travel is done by bike. But we now have one street where more people are moving by bike than by car. It's only one street among thousands, but the trend is visibly upwards. Having more bikes in the streets means less traffic congestion, and that serves the large slice of people using motor vehicles.

If you think bike travel is dumb for yourself and even for others (and this is the proverbial "you", not you personally), then you still have reason to want bikes on the streets, because they leave more space for you.

I-Like-To-Bike

"Bike travel" and "dockless bike share" schemes are not synonymous terms and you are fooling yourself to consider them as if they are.

jon c. 

I don't believe you can do that in a lot of places these days. Municipalities don't want people locked private property to their signposts and fences tend to be on private property. When I was a kid, no one much cared about that sort of thing but these days a lot more folks do. The bike share here requires that you lock it to any public bike rack. I don't think you can do anything else as a viable business model.

tandempower

It all comes down to parking. If local governments structure their parking rules to favor automobiles and make bike/scooter parking difficult because they don't want share bikes/scooters to make it viable for people to get around without cars and driving in that area, then that's just biased government limiting options and forcing people into using cars by preventing share companies from establishing that mode as a convenient option.

It's probably possible to incentivize such restrictions at the local governmental level in some way. E.g. if car dealers and their business associations frown on share bikes/scooters, then they will probably give other reasons why they don't want to allow those vehicles to park practically everywhere the way that cars do. They'll blame it on clutter or vandalism/theft, or just say they are not as popular as cars - i.e. because they don't want them to be as popular as cars because they want to force people into buying cars, insurance, tires, etc. and stimulating the local economy that way.

Mobile 155

jon c. 

But cars don't park practically everywhere. They park only in designated spots or they get ticketed. Or towed if they park on private property without permission. The problem with the free for all dockless concept is that it encourages illegal parking. Blocking sidewalks and causing potential safety hazards. You can't do that with any vehicle.

cooker

As we saw earlier in the thread, I do somewhat agree with you that dockless bikes can be a nuisance, and we shouldn't just let the companies and users do whatever they want. However the same is true of dockless cars (ie. cars) and over the years we have had to adapt to and try to rein in the users parking them carelessly, dumping them in rivers or just abandoning them on the street, driving dangerously and so on, and haven't totally succeeded, and for sure, manufacturers and drivers have also sucked up a huge amount of tax money where the rest of us have had to foot the bill. As a result, I'm not quite so concerned as you are about the poor taxpayer being saddled with the relatively small cost of cleaning up failed dockless bike endeavours or making parking space available for users. And if dockless (probably electric or e-assist) bikes do become mainstream (which may or may not happen) I have not doubt many municipalities will work out cooperative ways to accommodate them, because it may save them much more money due to less need to accommodate cars.

Car drivers have been socialized and regulated into responsible parking behavour and the same process will likely gradually occur with dockless bike users.