Dockless Bikeshare – The Dockpocalypse Nears

[Steve O]

@dasgeh 166909 wrote:

the coral of DoBis

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15627[/ATTACH]

[Drewdane]

@Judd 166855 wrote:

Which ones?

Some posts seem to imply that dockless bikeshare is a negative because some people may park their bikes “inappropriately” or even – *gasp!* – out of their operational boundaries. I say so what? The important thing here IMO is there are more opportunities for people to ride bikes who otherwise might not. Which is a GOOD thing!

[lordofthemark]

@Drewdane 166947 wrote:

Some posts seem to imply that dockless bikeshare is a negative because some people may park their bikes “inappropriately” or even – *gasp!* – out of their operational boundaries. I say so what? The important thing here IMO is there are more opportunities for people to ride bikes who otherwise might not. Which is a GOOD thing!

Two different questions

Locking the bikes outside operational boundaries is a problem for the system operator, and if they still find it profitable despite that, well then fine. Locking where bikes are not accessible is also an annoyance to customers – while some would say that will also fall on the system operator, as they lose business because of annoyance, so we can ignore that too, there is the concern that if CaBi is replaced (or even not expanded) that we are getting a lower quality of service in return, impacting our goals for bike share usage.

But parking where it interferes with pedestrian use of the sidewalk is something that is clearly a real harm. Many of us bike advocates are also pedestrian advocates, and even when we are not, conflict with pedestrians from jerkish rider behavior is not good for a biking agenda. That has to be weighed against the benefits of more butts on bikes.

[dbb]

Here is one that had been freed of the surly bonds of bikesharedom at HUD yesterday[ATTACH=CONFIG]15629[/ATTACH]

Apparently with a rock of suitable size, the locking mechanism can be removed.

[Judd]

@Drewdane 166947 wrote:

Some posts seem to imply that dockless bikeshare is a negative because some people may park their bikes “inappropriately” or even – *gasp!* – out of their operational boundaries. I say so what? The important thing here IMO is there are more opportunities for people to ride bikes who otherwise might not. Which is a GOOD thing!

I’ve made several of these comments. People are going to park outside of the boundaries and that’s fine. I do think it’s a problem when companies are unresponsive to adhering to the terms of the pilot, because it seems to be an indicator that the company will be unresponsive to other rules. Limebike appears to be particularly bad at this (There was a LimeBike at Hains Point for an entire week). It also potentially opens the entire pilot to resistance from stakeholders outside of the District.

While I agree that more opportunities to ride bikes is generally a good thing, I’m not an advocate for accepting all externalities to accomplish that. I think the pilot is interesting. There’s some things that I really like already (cool to see so many bikes in SW, people generally parking appropriately, all the color the bikes provide in the city landscape) and some things that I don’t like already (bikes don’t seem durable, company unresponsiveness).

As I’ve done before, I encourage everyone with an opinion, no matter what it is to provide feedback to DDOT at dockless.bikeshare@dc.gov I’m still waiting further into the pilot to provide my feedback to allow time for the pilot to mature and also see how the bikes do through the winter.

[Vicegrip]

Seems Silver spring MD is the next test bed for Lime Bike.

https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2017/10/bicycle-race-dockless-bike-sharing-cruises-montgomery-co/

[secstate]

Yes, I spotted one in Silver Spring this morning and wondered about this. The CaBi stations here aren’t terribly convenient, at least not for me, so the dockless might actually get used.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@secstate 167047 wrote:

Yes, I spotted one in Silver Spring this morning and wondered about this. The CaBi stations here aren’t terribly convenient, at least not for me, so the dockless might actually get used.

I can see this as a benefit to getting to your destination, but what about when it’s time to go somewhere else? Like, you don’t have a CaBi station near your house, so you take a DoBi…but then when you get up the next morning, the DoBi is gone and you’re back where you started. Maybe DoBi is a decent, albeit imperfect, solution to that problem, I dunno…but the lack of permanence of bike locations is something that would keep me from using it to get to an out-of-the-way spot.

[secstate]

@TwoWheelsDC 167052 wrote:

I can see this as a benefit to getting to your destination, but what about when it’s time to go somewhere else? Like, you don’t have a CaBi station near your house, so you take a DoBi…but then when you get up the next morning, the DoBi is gone and you’re back where you started. Maybe DoBi is a decent, albeit imperfect, solution to that problem, I dunno…but the lack of permanence of bike locations is something that would keep me from using it to get to an out-of-the-way spot.

A fair point. In practice, and IF dockless sticks around, I bet people will end up using a mix of systems, and will need to be a little flexible in their planning. That’s already the case with CaBi, since docks are frequently full or out of bikes around peak periods (though rarely here in Silver Spring, at least in my limited experience).

I don’t see myself giving up my personal bike, in part because many of my rides are longer than 30 minutes, and in part because I like the predictability of having a bike available without having to hunt for one. But, when I’m heading out for a night on the town, I like to carry as little as possible, and not having to worry about bringing a lock, lights, etc., makes that easier. I could see myself using a dockless bike from, say, Silver Spring to Columbia Heights or U Street — approx. a 25 minute ride, and with questionable dock availability. (I do this on CaBi sometimes as it is).

I really hope there proves to be room for both types of systems and that what we eventually see is an expanding bike pie.

[secstate]

So. It’s been a few weeks now. Have people who have been using or following the dockless systems developed any loyalties, attachments, or aversions to particular systems yet? This could be due to the quality or comfort of the bikes, or due to good or bad corporate behavior.

It’d be nice to have a backup to CaBi, which I enjoy riding but often has no bikes available in Foggy Bottom by the time I want to get out of here in the evenings. Also, I’m 5’10”, with legs perhaps on the long side for that height, and I hear that fit is an issue.

Apart from Jump, they still all seem interchangeable to me. I know Judd thinks the Limebike people are unresponsive. Assuming I’m not going to sign up and install apps for, like, four separate systems, which should I pick and why?

[bentbike33]

@dbb 166956 wrote:

Here is one that had been freed of the surly bonds of bikesharedom at HUD yesterday[ATTACH=CONFIG]15629[/ATTACH]

Apparently with a rock of suitable size, the locking mechanism can be removed.

Not pictured, was there a private citizen lock attaching it to the bike rack?

[cvcalhoun]

@secstate 167057 wrote:

Assuming I’m not going to sign up and install apps for, like, four separate systems, which should I pick and why?

Well, we’re now up to five systems: Limebike, Jump, Mobike, Ofo, and Spin. My own recommendation would be to install all of them. You can also install the Transit app, which will show you all the bikes from all the companies, so you don’t have to open up five different apps to figure out what bike is closest to you.

However, if you don’t want to install all those apps, I’d install Transit, and then check it a few times a day to see what bikes tend to hang around wherever you’d normally want to pick up a bike. Around my office, for example, there are always Spin bikes. There are frequently Limebikes. Mobikes and Ofo are a lot less prevalent, and Jump bikes are never around. The differences among the systems are a lot less critical than the availability of a bike when you want one.

[cvcalhoun]

@Drewdane 166947 wrote:

Some posts seem to imply that dockless bikeshare is a negative because some people may park their bikes “inappropriately” or even – *gasp!* – out of their operational boundaries. I say so what? The important thing here IMO is there are more opportunities for people to ride bikes who otherwise might not. Which is a GOOD thing!

My chief worry is that if bikes are parked inappropriately (e.g., blocking traffic in the middle of busy downtown sidewalks), people will develop (even more) negative views of cyclists, which will have an impact on all of us.

That is not to say that my view of dockless bikeshare is entirely negative. The vast majority of them seem to get parked appropriately. And I personally have found them much more useful than CaBi, because I don’t have to worry about finding a dock near my destination. Once I’ve got a bike, I can just ride it exactly where I’m going.

However, I have reported inappropriately parked bikes to Spin, Mobike, and Limebike. And in each instance, the reported bikes don’t get moved for days.

[lordofthemark]

@cvcalhoun 167063 wrote:

Well, we’re now up to five systems: Limebike, Jump, Mobike, Ofo, and Spin. My own recommendation would be to install all of them. You can also install the Transit app, which will show you all the bikes from all the companies, so you don’t have to open up five different apps to figure out what bike is closest to you.

However, if you don’t want to install all those apps, I’d install Transit, and then check it a few times a day to see what bikes tend to hang around wherever you’d normally want to pick up a bike. Around my office, for example, there are always Spin bikes. There are frequently Limebikes. Mobikes and Ofo are a lot less prevalent, and Jump bikes are never around. The differences among the systems are a lot less critical than the availability of a bike when you want one.

I also have Strava, and now RidewithGPS. And I have Spotcycle, for CaBi and the app for the Albany NY bikeshare system. I had the Baltimore app, deleted it when their system closed, but now their system is opening again, so maybe I should DL that again? And then there is Amazon, which I basically only use for bike stuff. My smartphone is now even more dominated by bikes than my brain is.

[cvcalhoun]

@lordofthemark 167065 wrote:

My smartphone is now even more dominated by bikes than my brain is.

What, there is something else in your life besides bikes?

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