General Motors is creating its own private bike share

[PotomacCyclist]

Interesting, although I’m trying to think through what the larger benefits could be, for multimodal transportation nationwide. I don’t think GM would enter the bikeshare management or production markets. Too far from their core business and not much money, compared to the automobile market.

Would they want to promote bikeshare in other locations? Maybe sponsor bikeshare systems? Kind of difficult to see this happening. Would they support efforts to create better multimodal infrastructure in cities and towns?

I do think there can be a benefit to all of these GM employees discovering the utility and benefits of transportational cycling. But I wouldn’t expect this to be game-changing. Maybe they can influence the Mid-Atlantic AAA so they stop describing almost everything under the sun as a “war on cars.”

[Dickie]

I for one think this is pretty cool. Any step forward is a good step…. let’s hope Detroit’s winter doesn’t completely sidetrack the project. Detroit, for all it’s troubles is trying…. Shinola, Detroit Bicycle Company, Detroit Bikes, and projects like Bike Detroit make me proud of my old stomping grounds.

[jrenaut]

I definitely prefer my tax dollars going towards a bikeshare system than towards building mediocre cars.

[dbb]

I think the bikeshare program at Newport News shipyard is bigger

http://articles.dailypress.com/2012-09-25/business/dp-nws-shipyard-bikes-20120925_1_bike-share-programs-hand-brakes-bicycles

But way cool that auto-centric businesses are recognizing the opportunities/benefits of cycling.

[cyclingfool]

I didn’t realize the NN Shipbuilding had that. Gives me a modicum more pride in the city where I went to middle and high school…

[Steve]

@cyclingfool 94843 wrote:

I didn’t realize the NN Shipbuilding had that.

While it doesn’t have private ones such as GM and NN, there is a googlemap of all of the known/planned bikeshares in the world. I’m sure it’s not completely accurate, but I think its fairly good, as the Cincinnati one that became operational only last week or so is on there. (link)

[cyclingfool]

Thanks! Bookmarked for future reference and poking around.

[americancyclo]

@KLizotte 94822 wrote:

General Motors is creating a new bike-share program to service employees at the company’s a sprawling, 330 acre Technical Center in Warren, MI.

http://urbanful.org/2014/09/09/general-motors-unveils-latest-bike-share/

Glad to see there are already 2 Strava segments there!

http://www.strava.com/segments/4765960

http://www.strava.com/segments/4766883

[Emm]

yay Detroit! If they keep the sidewalks and roads on the GM campus plowed, it’ll be useful year round. While in Ann Arbor I rode my bike through the winter, as long as my classes started after 12 (when the sidewalks/roads would be clear). And I didn’t even have winter riding gear, or even a bike that stopped when the brakes got wet.

My office had it’s own private bikeshare for awhile here in DC. We work in a building that’s a 15 min walk away from where the rest of our agency sits, so a former boss bought a cheap bike at a garage sale, locked it in the basement, and let everyone use it when we had to run between buildings for meetings. It was actually really useful. I wish he left it when he moved to a different department .

[KWL]

Didn’t Hollywood studios do this years ago?

[ontarioroader]

Factories, large warehouses and movie lots have been using fleets bikes (and often trikes) to get around for years. These are just fleet bike systems that are being re-branded as ‘bike share’ because it’s a trendy new term. IMO if these systems aren’t open to the general public (and in an area accessible by the general public) then they aren’t really getting the ‘share’ part of bike share.

[Dickie]

@ontarioroader 95435 wrote:

Factories, large warehouses and movie lots have been using fleets bikes (and often trikes) to get around for years. These are just fleet bike systems that are being re-branded as ‘bike share’ because it’s a trendy new term. IMO if these systems aren’t open to the general public (and in an area accessible by the general public) then they aren’t really getting the ‘share’ part of bike share.

My understanding is that the GM plant has approximately 19,000 employees and isn’t charging any of them for use as long as they register for the app. I would most certainly consider that “sharing”. Yes, it would be wonderful if GM became super charitable and offered this to the general public but it shouldn’t diminish their efforts to embrace an unconventional solution simply because it is reserved for their employees or not original.

[mstone]

@Dickie 95443 wrote:

My understanding is that the GM plant has approximately 19,000 employees and isn’t charging any of them for use as long as they register for the app. I would most certainly consider that “sharing”. Yes, it would be wonderful if GM became super charitable and offered this to the general public but it shouldn’t diminish their efforts to embrace an unconventional solution simply because it is reserved for their employees or not original.

We used to have this thing called the “motor pool”, back before it became trendy to tack “sharing” onto things. The way it worked is that a company would buy a bunch of cars, but less than one per employee, and employees could use the cars as needed. I would call this a “bike pool” rather than “sharing”. (I actually don’t even like calling cabi “sharing”, because you’re paying for it. Seems confusing to conflate the concepts of “renting” and “sharing”.) If the system worked in such a way that person A walks up to person B and says, “can I borrow your bike for a bit” or even if person A leaves his bike out in the expectation that person B would be able to use it, then that is “sharing”. Or I guess we could agree that an established concept becomes new and cool and is “sharing” because an app is involved, but I’m not 100% on-board yet.

That said, it is impressive to see GM doing this. (And I guess it’s a sign that their business is doing better since they didn’t jump on it as an opportunity to dump some fleet vehicle overproduction.)

[Steve]

You have to love the fact that GM is doing this because they (it would seem) determined that cars are not the best way to easily, cheaply, and efficiently move people around it’s campus. Who knew!? But parking spots are so small and it’s so easy to have enough for everyone! And cars are so easy to cheap to maintain!

[Author]

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