NOS88

I wouldn't give up just yet. Your post was insightful and honest. The hijackers who want to argue every little detail outside the intent of your post should not have the last word.

MinnMan

Sure, mobile155, you can always win an argument when you attack a proposition that nobody has offered. Nobody here has argued that bikeshare bikes are better quality than those you can own. Nobody here is forcing you to rent the damned things if you don't like the terms of service or don't find them convenient. So why do you feel the need to tell us all the terrible things about programs that many people use and enjoy? Several people here are singing the praises of these programs as additions to their personal-bike use or as serving a community of bike-users beyond those who choose to own and maintain their own bicycles. And some people here have said that for some users, taking advantage of a bikeshare program is better than owning a bike. Is that not OK with you?

These programs are proliferating because they are popular. Maybe there are cities where racks of bicycles are sitting unused- the programs in those cities, if they exist, will soon fold. But in every city I've been in where there are such programs, I see people all over the place on bike-share bikes. If all of there experiences were so terrible, I doubt that would be the case.

gcottay

Your daughter is a smart woman.

daihard 

I think a bike share program will work well in certain situations. One that your daughter described is definitely one of them. If you don't know where you end up going ahead of time, and/or if you take public transit which may or may not be bike-friendly, I'd definitely rent a shared bike and drop it off at a nearby "station" rather than take my own bike and keep looking for a secure place to lock it. Besides, if you decide to go straight home from your final destination, you'd have to retrieve your bike if you rode it.

Wogster

You rent hotel rooms by the half hour? Does your spouse know about this????

The whole point is, if you only need a bike occasionally for short periods, they can be helpful. Say for example you take a regional train into a central station, but you work say 4 miles away, and there is a bike station a block away from work. You can grab a bike and be at work in 5-10 minutes. Then grab a bike there and be back at your train in the same time. Probably better then hauling a 40lb folder on the train, each way, then trying to find a place to leave it at work.

Mobile 155

No to be exact, the whole point is in the very first point, the title. City bike shares better than having your own bike So no matter what Minnman says someone did say the bikes were better. I made mention of that right up front and because I like riding my bike I will stick with getting the bike you want will almost always be better than getting what a committee says is the bike for you. Being able to ride to my destination is better than riding a few blocks away. And being able to ride from my starting point is better than walking to find a bike to ride past my next destination. If I were simply a pedestrian that might not be the case because I would be walking those blocks anyway.

Like I said if you are a pedestrian at heart, sure, give it a shot. But if you are a cyclist and love to ride your bike not so much. And if simply disagreeing that the bake share is better than having your own bike fills the people with insecurity so be it, I have no dog in that fight. Sure I like having choices and I didn't say dump the programs, I said and will say as long as I can breath they are not better than having my own bike because they are not better bikes. I didn't pick the title and I wasn't attacking his daughters expertise. Being helpful is miles away from being better than the bike I choose.

Did anyway really expect a forum of people that like bikes enough to believe a city bike is a better solution than what they are willing to spend their own money on? I sure wouldn't. We can't agree on the material our bikes are made of or what saddle is best it is just as unlikely we will agree on city bikes being better that our own bikes.

tcs

I think the modern bike share systems are great but I don't think they're better than having your own bike. I was amused at one story out of Paris: folks in one neighborhood would rent the bikes in the morning to ride downhill into town in the morning, and take the Metro uphill back home in the evening.

My goodness, that is convenient!

Wow! Chris Froome's got nothing on you!

There are scenarios where bike share is great and scenarios where it doesn't make sense.

Say for example that same person gets back to their suburban station that evening. They snag a bike share bike at the station, and ride out into residential land to their home. While the bike was only needed for a short period, it then sits until it's ridden back to the station the next morning, racking up rental charges. Okay, that's just silly, so the person drives to and from the suburban transit station - except now they've replaced owning their own bike with a bike share account AND a second car. So their wife drives them to the station. So now they've replaced owning their own bike with getting married. So they ride their own (their own!) 'not worth stealing' bike to the suburban transit station and leave it locked up all day every day out in the weather, and pay rental on a bike share bike in the city. Hmmm - still demonstrably better than owning a quality folder? I guess I'd allow a reasonable person to make either choice without censure.

Interestingly enough, I recently rode the regional train from the central station out to the end of the line where a company was located I needed to do business with, stepped off, activated the app that tells me where the nearest bike share kiosk was, and it said '32 miles'. I was glad I brought my (23lb, not 40lb) folder.

dbg

Is it too late to change the title to: "City bike shares more often more convenient than using your own bike" --?

People in urban environments that meet and move spontaneously --would likely benefit from bike share programs more than having their own bike. And I don't think a "folder" bike changes anything at all. I certainly wouldn't want to drag a folder around to restaurants or clubs or wherever the group spontaneously decides to go.

If all your rides start and end at your residence, you do not need the share program. But then you don't interact much with other people or act spontaneously.

Regarding flats... you just dock it back into the nearest station and grab another bike. You find stations every few blocks.

MinnMan

Yes, it is too late. This is the internet and everything you write will be held against you and subjected to relentless reductio ad absurdum. But take heart, at least some of the crowd appreciated what you meant.

daihard 

No worries, I know what the intent of your post is.

Like I said a few posts above, I can see situations where a bike share program works very well. When something is more convenient than another, it can certainly be called better.

A bike share program may never replace a bike of your own if you are an avid cyclist and/or love your bike, but I'd say people like that aren't in the majority.

Car sharing programs such as Zipcar and Car2Go are popular in urban areas because they are convenient for the city dwellers. I can't see how the same can't be said about bike share programs.

dbf73

A guy here locally last summer did a ride between every station on the network in one day and never exceeded the 30 minute limit. A bit of planning that.

dbg

That's not going to be so easy (1 day) in Chicago. It would be an interesting problem to compute the optimal path (Karmarkar's algorithm anyone?)