Bay Area Bike Share is one of the least-used systems in US, costs $5k per bike

Conflict of interest alert!

I have a few problem with this article:

1 - Spin.pm a provider of a competing solution is using this article to argue their solution to bike sharing is far more economical than the one offered by the bay area cities.

2 - However, in doing so they fail to show us any data into the true cost of their solution.

3 - Part of their cost saving comes from not having to build the infrastructure. But the article doesn't talk about how their system and technology works. And what about the cost of theft (even to salvage parts).

4 - All those aside, the article and its conclusion are not that congruent: A - Could it be it's harder to bike in SF for average people than in areas that are mostly flat like DC or NYC? B - Could it be, most people who bike in the city already own a bike or need something better to handle the hills?

5 - Lastly, how is their solution going to improve ride sharing numbers in the city? Their article shows correlation between number of stations/sq mile. and number of ride share (at least for NYC). It's very unclear to me, how will their solution be better. Are they arguing because they have no stations, it's unlimited number of biking station.

This article remind me a bit politician budget tactic. "Tax payers are paying $5k/bike that no one is using!"

edit: changed politically slanted line and typo.

I've been in SF again (temporarily) for the last 3 months and getting the Bay Area Bike Share annual membership was one of the first things I did. At $88 / year, it paid for itself after the first 20 round-trips vs. taking Muni.

Pros:

For my particular commute (home to Caltrain & back 2-3x a week) it has worked great - there's a rack across the street from home and two adjacent to Caltrain.

Perhaps due to the alleged low ridership, I have only had two instances of not finding available bikes; once when I left somewhat late in the morning (~ 11am), and last week when there were 7 bikes, but the rack was broken and wouldn't release them.

Cons:

As others have stated, the bikes are pretty heavy. It's fine on flat surfaces, but on slight inclines you will definitely work harder. For most of the non-hilly areas they're fine though.

General maintenance: I find the shifters often out of alignment and components like seats, shifters, handgrips seem to be wearing out faster than I would expect for relatively new bikes.

Rack distribution: This is being fixed, but right now, the sparse distribution of racks coupled with the 30 minute trip limitation (without paying more) means it's mainly useful for that specific trip. It's not practical, for example to ride 2 miles to Safeway for groceries since it would run past the 30 minute window to get it back to the originating rack. (Also the logistics of securing an expensive-to-replace bike in a bike-theft-heavy area).

Overall, if you have two frequent destinations served by the racks, it's a great alternative to Muni. Again, for my case, I consistently ride to Caltrain in ~ 10-11 minutes (tracked on the site) vs. 20-45 minutes on SF's abysmal (IMO) public transit.

This article is statistics-based propaganda, designed to promote the message that SF's bikeshare system is failing and that Spin is the remedy. The evidence presidented ranges from irrelevant to outright lies.

Take, for example, the density statistics presented on DC. The numbers used, 440 stations, 3700 bikes, 680000 residents, and 68 square miles are facially accurate. But the resident and size figures are of DC itself, ignoring the fact that only 239 of those stations are actually in DC - the rest are in Maryland or Virginia [1].

Looking at the station maps, it's easy to see what's going on. SF's program is much less developed than many of the others mentioned [2][3][4][5]. This is fine. It takes a lot of time and money to put all those stations in place. That doesn't mean the program is a failure.

Bikeshare programs, like all transmit programs, have a major network effect - you need a station both near the start and end of your journey. As SF adds stations in more residential neighborhoods, you'll see the ridership statistics climb. In its current state, there's nothing bad or surprising about any of the numbers presented.

Spin is trying to divert interest in SF bikeshare programs to its model before the current program becomes too successful and entrenched. Don't let it distract from the fact that we're off to a great start.

Oh, and I can't believe they have the gall to say SF is a great biking city.

[1] https://www.capitalbikeshare.com/press-kit [2] https://member.bayareabikeshare.com/stations [3] https://secure.capitalbikeshare.com/map/ [4] https://member.citibikenyc.com/map/ [5] https://member.divvybikes.com/stations

30 minutes causes time anxiety, so I couldn't imagine myself using it. How about a simple change to 90 min on par with a muni transfer, that way you might be able to run an actual errand. The current version is for commuting only, seems like a waste.

Out of all the bike systems I've used, the best has been Youbike in Taipei. They have stations everywhere, they clearly out thought into common commute routes, it's highly affordable (first 20 minutes free so I actually rarely paid), broken bikes get picked up within 24hrs. The bikes are well designed and not horrifically heavy like other systems I've used. They even have a lock embedded so you can lock up at a restaurant or whatever if there's no station nearby. Wait times were low and they had trucks that would drive a bunch of bikes from high drop off low pickup locations to high pickup low drop off locations during rush hour.

And it works. Everyone seems to be using it. Usually you get to a station and 80% of the bikes are gone because of how popular they are. I can only imagine what that's doing for the traffic and environment in Taipei, not to mention the citywide health.

I don't know about in SF, but test programs (e.g., Mountain View, which discontinued the bikes about six months ago) may have been under-utilized for a few reasons:

1) Sparsely placed racks mean that you tend to do round trips rather than point-to-point.

2) 30 minute time limits coupled with #1 make for an implausible itinerary.

3) Racks are not near obvious mass-transit connections or useful destinations, and instead are crammed into sidewalk planning oddities which are otherwise difficult to use productively.

There have been a few times that I've walked by a rack and thought that it would make sense for a trip, but abandoned the idea after looking at the station map and my watch. These days I do about 60% of total trips by personal bicycle, 35% by car, and 5% by Caltrain + skateboard.

I see in the article:

"Taxpayers are paying $5,249 per bike"

However another bike share program referenced in the article NYC "Citibike" is subsidized by Citibank, and bikes are painted in citibank livery. I would be curious to know what the difference is price per bike is with a corporate subsidy.

That being said I personally find the idea of riding around on an advertisement for Citibank agreeable. Is the NYC bike share program an anomaly then in terms of it's model? Many European bike shares also seem to be closer to the non-corporate subsidized model as well.

Im not paying $88 a year for some random 30 mins. When I used to bike to work I used my own bike which is lighter, faster, has no time limit on it, and not that much more expensive over the years I lived there.

The pricing scheme is not worth it.

I haven't used these. Though, being a cyclist in SF I have some opinions.

As much effort as SF has put into it, there are still many corridors that don't have safe biking paths. Most are very exposed bike lanes, to both traffic and parking cars. Market street, even with the efforts to divert car traffic from it still has many sections where it's very dangerous on a bike. North of market there are nearly no bike lanes... I can't think of one right now, though I don't bike there often. Between embaracadaro and 7th streets there are hardly any north south bike lanes.

This all adds up to an unfriendly environment for novice cyclists. And those shared bikes are tanks, which means they're very slow compared to traffic, making them even greater targets.

What I believe we need are fully dedicated bicycling only corridors spread around every district of the city about four blocks apart. As it is now, there are few and far between (but it is a million times better than when I first moved here).

These are the same bikes we have in Chicago as Divvy, right? I can't imagine trying to ride one in S.F. The things weigh upwards of 40 pounds.

I think the Capital bike share data in DC might be highly skewed because A. DC is super small, and B. The bikes for sharing are basically all over the National Mall, which is a massive tourist spot and they are almost a perfect fit for tourists looking to see sites there - via a lovely long gravel path, not busy city streets. If I were visiting Chicago as a tourist and in the loop, a Divvy would not draw me at all. There's nothing but cabs and angry office drones walking randomly into the street.

Though I suppose that doesn't skew the data, it just means it's a better fit for a tourism environment than commuter infrastructure.

I used these blue bikes for a couple months and eventually gave up because the stations in SoMa were invariably full. I'd have to wander around with a heavy bike looking for somewhere to park it and it made my commute unreliable. This was 2014, so maybe it's improved.

Hello HN, Euwyn here, president and co-founder of Spin. I'm 2x YC, our CEO Derrick was formerly at Lyft, and our CTO was at Disqus (YC 07). I helped to start this company in part because of my own personal annoyance with the design of "station-based" bike-share systems. Who thought that having to _find a station_, then think about whether your _destination_ had a station close-by was a good idea?

We just had a huge launch in Austin at SXSW, and just announced a deal with the City of Austin. See:

https://www.fastcoexist.com/3068900/this-new-stationless-bik...

https://blog.spin.pm/spin-partners-with-the-city-of-austin-5...

We're hiring for everything (city GMs, ops, engineers, GR, etc), and love hearing from people who are passionate about having this in their city. We're particularly interested in hearing from folks in SF, where we're based, where the City is considering a measure that would hamper station-less bike-share systems.

euwyn@spin.pm

Also, as I sadly discovered, beyond a 2 second LED blip, there's no way to verify a successful bike dock. And a botched docking could cost you $1200.

Man, that is ludicrously expensive. I pay 1 EUR/30 minutes, capped at 9 EUR for a whole day. No membership fee. For 48 EUR, you get the first 30 minutes free for a year.

I live in Santa Monica... don't get me started on the (SoBi-powered) bike share here (launched about 16 months ago)!

Too late, I'm started: first, I signed up for a year for $99, which included 2 hours free per day and you could lock the bikes up anywhere at no charge.

One month in, they changed it to only one hour free, without grandfathering in people like me that had paid for a year up front. That was annoying but not a huge deal.

The main problem was a few months later when they decided to charge $2 if you leave a bike outside a hub (you get a $1 credit if you return an out of hub bike to a hub.)

That seemingly small change has DRASTICALLY changed the service for the worse. I averaged 4 rides a day with the bike before this change, now I maybe do 2 a week. Even though $2 really should be inconsequential to me, it's so hard to swallow! So then you're like "I should really return it to a station." But even though there are a fair number, they always add about a five minute round-trip walk to and from your final destination. That's usually enough for me to decide to just drive.

It's super frustrating too because the city is losing $54,000/mo on the service anyway! So why nickel and dime the users into not using the bikes? I assume their real goal is not to make a profit, but to promote bike riding. I've contacted them multiple times to no avail.

It also doesn't make sense: why not at least make it $2 back when you return a bike? Same net effect to the system! The worst is if you take a bike out of a hub and leave it out of a hub... you think maybe you'd get charged nothing? Or perhaps $1? ($1 credit minus $2 fee) nope! You are still charged the full $2. Which means if you ever ride by a hub with a bike you gout outside a hub you really should stop, lock it, unlock it, and continue your ride! Sigh.

Finally, I had this (amazing) idea that since they already have people driving all around SM with cars filled with bikes rearranging them, why not add an uber-like "deliver me a bike now" feature? They could even charge extra for that. How cool would it be to have a city bike share where the bikes not only aren't in hubs but aren't even locked up on the street... they're all being constantly trucked around the city waiting for calls!

Hey spin... do that!

I use Hubway very often in Boston and must say the system works very well. Three reasons I think it works very well here:

> They have stops everywhere. Near every major T station, near grocery stores, etc. You can always go, park, take another again and ride back.

> Since its so cold out half of the year, I can't leave my bike outside and need to carry it down an elevator from home, through 4 doors and, an elevator at work and back every time. Hubway is low maintenance.

> Hubway has partnerships with most universities and major businesses here. As a student at MIT, you get Hubway yearly at $25 which is a steal. I have a flat tire on my bike, started using Hubway and not looked back.

I think its just an awareness/implementation issue. Once people start using it, I am sure the numbers will look better. Edit: The bike itself costs < $1000. The station itself might be expensive which explains the price.

Biking in Soma is incredibly dangerous. Everyone I know who bikes there has had an accident at some point in the last few years. And I suspect its getting worse with Uber and Lyft drivers who pour in from elsewhere around the bay and have no familiarity with the streets at all.

SF is a small city, relatively bike friendly city. Most residents who would bike around own their own bike. Tourists could use them but why would they when the main tourist zone is easily walkable, Uber is cheap to get elsewhere and the hills deter biking anyway.

You've got an inverse situation in NYC where the bike share became part of the point-to-point transit system, covering a huge area. You can't bring a bike on the NYC subway and you wouldn't want to anyways. Residents overwhelmed the rideshare the first few years. Adventurous tourists used it a lot too.

Some experimentation might help understand what is going on. From this article and what I see on a daily basis it seems that the shared bikes at the CalTrain station get a lot of use and the primary limitation there are the number of available bikes. Perhaps increasing the number of bikes where they are most used would improve the numbers more than just adding stations around the city.

So on average there are about two bikes per dock? Seems to me like the bigger news here is the corruption of officials across cities in the bay area. Exclusivity clause. 2 bikes per dock. $5000 to maintain one bike. Check, check, and check. Sounds like the most inefficient, stupid way of building a bike network possible unless your goal is to make a lot of money for the contractor.

If you want to verify some of these claims, the data is already loaded in BigQuery and ready to be analyzed:

- https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public-data/bay-bike-share

Btw, I was surprised to see ridership go down in 2016 compared to 2015. Wondering why here

There have been ridiculously beautiful days where I've found myself during rush hour, with trains backed up 20 minutes, moments where I'd go sure I'll ride a bike from Caltrain to Westfield mall, then I look at the price.

They want $12 for 30 minute use/24 hour membership. Its just something I can't justify for one off commutes.

more bicycle, pedestrian only grade-separated crossings would really improve bicycle safety and travel times.

these bicycle tunnels and (less commonly) bridges are common in late-20th century planned communities like The Woodlands and Kingwood in Texas.

https://www.google.com/search?q=bike+path+tunnel&safe=active...

I use the Bay Area Bike Share for commute and I absolutely love it! $88/year is a great price! Much cheaper than Muni or even owning my bike considering possible theft and maintenance costs.

This article claims San Francisco is a "great biking city". Are you kidding me? It's dangerous as hell, I never felt safe biking there. Come to Portland and you'll see what a real biker-friendly city is.

I, for one, am shocked that a city with so many steep hills doesn't use these three speed 40-pound bikes as much as other places.

Is this similar to the Boris Bikes we have in London?

All these systems are very similar, must be the same (sub) contractor. The ones in Boston are nice when you're out and about and don't want to deal with lugging your bike onto the subway, or you're going out drinking and don't want to have to worry about getting your bike home at the end of the night.

$90/yr is a bargain imo. I've never exceeded the 30m limit, you can stop at a dock and swap bikes along the way, if your trip takes more than a half hour. That would be rare here, biking is the fastest mode of transportation here and everything is close together.

>Taxpayers are paying $5,249 per bike

So progressive!