Dockless Bikeshare – The Dockpocalypse Nears

[Judd]

Dockless bikeahare started in DC today. Saw a Mobike in the wild at World Bank today.

[TwoWheelsDC]

I have thoughts…not coherent thoughts, but sort of vague outlines of thoughts about this, and they are mostly dark and negative.

[jrenaut]

I remain hopeful if skeptical. There really isn’t much public space in the city that’s not already allocated to cars, and there’s a lot of competition for it.

[LhasaCM]

@TwoWheelsDC 165564 wrote:

I have thoughts…not coherent thoughts, but sort of vague outlines of thoughts about this, and they are mostly dark and negative.

Anything along these lines?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15483[/ATTACH]

[Judd]

@TwoWheelsDC 165564 wrote:

I have thoughts…not coherent thoughts, but sort of vague outlines of thoughts about this, and they are mostly dark and negative.

I’m going to try riding one today just to try it out, but I’m also highly skeptical that they are a good idea, particularly since CaBi is a robust and publicly funded system (at least in the places where I work and play).

If DC does decide to allow dockless bikeshare operators in the city, I hope that the franchise fee to do so is adequate to cover the externalities.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@LhasaCM 165567 wrote:

Anything along these lines?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15483[/ATTACH]

That’s like, the penumbra…

[drevil]

@LhasaCM 165567 wrote:

Anything along these lines?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15483[/ATTACH]

This is more along the lines of what I’m thinking…

[jrenaut]

@Judd 165569 wrote:

If DC does decide to allow dockless bikeshare operators in the city, I hope that the franchise fee to do so is adequate to cover the externalities.

If we venture into the dreamworld where this is even a vague possibility, we’d still have to confront the reality that the fees would be used for something else anyway. Like defending against the lawsuits from NIMBYs. I guess maybe you’re counting that as part of the externalities though.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@jrenaut 165566 wrote:

I remain hopeful if skeptical. There really isn’t much public space in the city that’s not already allocated to cars, and there’s a lot of competition for it.

I suppose that could be viewed as an advantage for the dockless bikes, since they don’t need to be locked to anything. But I worry that they’ll just get left laying in the middle of streets and sidewalks and people will get fed up with them. And I worry that these will be conflated with CaBi, and our beloved public bike transit system could once again fall into the NIMBY crosshairs.

[lordofthemark]

On the one hand – new technology! Choice! Convenience! A bypass around NIMBYs!

On the other hand – Fixed costs. Natural public utility. Undermining the possibly more desirable high fixed cost network by skimming the cream – see past arguments about jitneys vs fixed schedule buses, private shuttle buses vs public buses, and more recently, Uber/Lyft vs public transit.

#TwoHandedEconomist #NotALudditeBut #EveryoneShouldTakeMicroEcon #CanIGetCaBiInMyNeighborhoodFirst

[huskerdont]

I wonder how they’ll fare WRT vandalism. They don’t look as sturdy as CaBi bikes. I don’t know if that’s a solar panel inside the basket, but whatever it is, it looks easily breakable.

I saw that Baltimore’s bike share program was temporarily shutting down because of vandalism and theft.

ETA that the Post has an article on these:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/dockless-bike-share-companies-race-to-washington/2017/09/19/a7e2c346-9a33-11e7-b569-3360011663b4_story.html?hpid=hp_local-news_bikeshare-425pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.8c75b4a982af

[Guus]

I’d say — the more bicycles, the better. The more people use bikes, the more political pressure there will be to improve the safety of our infrastructure.

[huskerdont]

@Guus 165580 wrote:

I’d say — the more bicycles, the better. The more people use bikes, the more political pressure there will be to improve the safety of our infrastructure.

May end up being a good thing, but could also end up hurting CaBi, thereby being a negative in the long term. I’d rather see CaBi expanded to areas that need it. But we shall see.

[Judd]

@huskerdont 165579 wrote:

I don’t know if that’s a solar panel inside the basket, but whatever it is, it looks easily breakable.

That is a solar panel inside the basket. I took a picture but didn’t post it yet. My first thought was that it did look flimsy, but I didn’t give it a poke. My second thought was wondering how much light they need each day to make the bike continue to operate, since this one was parked under an awning.

The bike didn’t appear as robust as a CaBi or as heavy. Since it was new all the parts were nice and clean, but I did think about how maintenance will be handled.

[huskerdont]

@Judd 165584 wrote:

That is a solar panel inside the basket. I took a picture but didn’t post it yet. My first thought was that it did look flimsy, but I didn’t give it a poke. My second thought was wondering how much light they need each day to make the bike continue to operate, since this one was parked under an awning.

The bike didn’t appear as robust as a CaBi or as heavy. Since it was new all the parts were nice and clean, but I did think about how maintenance will be handled.

I saw on your Strava feed that the solar panel had a sticker saying the maximum load was 5 kg. That’s like telling people how they can break it, in case they couldn’t figure it out themselves.

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