Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition
wsj.com
wsj.com
I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodgeball. (For those who don't remember, it was a company basically like Foursquare, but years before. Google bought it and did little with it. Eventually the founders got tired of it, left Google, and started the same company again.)
The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small.
They just took $10m in January, which is a fair bit of runway for testing hypotheses. When they start to run low on that, they can go to every single VC firm for more. Inside Uber, they are going to have approximately one executive to get funding from. Currently that executive obviously likes them. But feelings change, and they're just a reorg or an executive departure away from somebody who gives zero fucks.
It can also miss the forest for the trees if they have a few bikes that they usually put in an okay spot (but not enough bikes to meet the real demand).
I don't mean to sound like an advertisement. I just want to note how transformative owning an ebike has been. A good 50% of my car trips have been replaced, and I enjoy the ride while doing so. And I like my car, too. But ebikes are just that much fun.
not entirely true concerning the bike share companies. when they are fighting for dominance like they are in Dallas, the city gets littered with the bikes and people start vandalizing them. This happened in Paris so much that the dockless bikeshares pulled out.
American bicycle infrastructure is behind, but it exists. I don't own a car. I get around those cities on bike without issue. It's as fast or faster than a car in many cases and I'm peddling the old fashioned way (with legs).
Portland itself is a very bikeable city and a lot of time/energy is spent to improve and grow this infrastructure. Traffic is getting to the point where cycling is faster for inner-city trips, but as I live outside of the city it's a non-starter because public transportation from my end of town is severely limited.
Seattle doesn't seem nearly as bike friendly, and while it's certainly faster to bike or walk during rush hour, it doesn't seem nearly as safe as Portland. I certainly have no interest in cycling in Seattle, driving is bad enough.
Going up the hill on a Lime, Spin, or Ofo...no way -- you see those at the bottom of every hill.
Seattle is probably in the top 5 cities for driver awareness, but it has room for improvement.
The density simply isn't there, and the infrastructure is pretty horrible aside from some exceedingly small areas of the city proper, and of course the amazing bike paths (which typically are not useful for anything other than leisure). If that's what you consider a high bar for "bike infrastructure" in the US, I think the situation is pretty dire.
I moved to Chicago largely due to transit-related reasons, and the bike commute here isn't exactly stellar - but it's at least night and day compared to the average suburban-oriented city in the US.
That said, spending significant time in the Netherlands may have raised the bar too far for me to really think of any US bike infrastructure as being much more than an afterthought at best.
There's nothing out-of-ordinary about the amount of rainfall in Minneapolis or Chicago so not sure where you're coming from with that one, but you just wear a rain jacket and, again, have a dry change of clothes if you're going somewhere that demands formal dress. In Chicago I've found the wind has a much bigger impact on my biking than precipitation.
So in Chicago the typical bicycle commuter commutes on the nice days (maybe half the year?) and will take public transit the rest.
In Minneapolis I commuted via bike for financial reasons so it was mostly a "suck it up, buttercup" sort of deal. You brought changes of clothes, outfitted your bike for the weather, and otherwise just made do. Honestly summer was worse than winter because I sweat a lot in heat. I cannot imagine living in that area without a car voluntarily. You just cut yourself off from far too much - but I suppose this was pre-Uber so the situation is a little bit more tenable.
Public transit in Minneapolis is basically for poor folks or those with DUIs - so it's not exactly stellar and usually not an option for most folks living in the metro area.
Edit: The follow up of "maybe 15 bad days" you had is for what most would call hardcore riders. The number of days the casual fair-weather bicycle commuter rides is far, far, less. I feel pretty comfortable saying this considering my family was known as crazies because we'd bike throughout the winter no matter the weather.
What? No.
I'm in Minneapolis. I live downtown. I find using the bus and light rail far more convenient and easy then a car. Let alone the baggage a car brings such as maintenance, insurance, upfront costs, and not to mention parking.
Or the heavy Boris bikes or the small wheeled shopper style that a lot of these bike share companies use and most of these bikes are probably badly maintained.
1. https://www.outsideonline.com/1930411/10-best-bike-cities-no...
2. https://www.travelchannel.com/interests/outdoors-and-adventu...
the biggest challenge is bike security (not getting it stolen). bike racks and locks are a poor solution if unattended. if we could put bike racks right in front of the gate attendant booths that most public parking garages have, it would be a much better deterrent to theft. and for residential buildings, you could have lockers or a locked bike storage room (possibly with security cameras too).
Except that LA is a sprawl and almost nothing is close together. Maybe if you live at the beach its nice.
Also, a bicycle can serve as a last-mile connector to the transit system - imagine someone who lives at Wilshire and La Brea but works in West Hollywood, and would like to take the Red Line, but doesn't want to lose an hour to walking.
Isn't LA like, the single place on earth where this is least true?
I have never heard this before? Do you a citation for this? More likely in LA is that people simply "limit their tether to 5 miles."
but you gotta get over that perception of sprawl to realize how great LA is for multi-modal transport.
multi-modal transport? You mean the bus? The bus in LA is a joke. Nobody wants to take the bus in LA - it takes way to long to get anywhere. The metro is notable in how little area it covesr. I think this map illustrates this well:
https://media.timeout.com/images/103334943/image.jpg
So what does that leave? Cars. You yourself even mentioned ""Lyft and renting a car." Owning a car, renting a car and calling a car are all car-centric modes of transport.
And LA doesn't have a perception of sprawl it is actually sprawl.
but as a resident i almost never do that kind of ping-ponging around town. you can find good food, drinks, and entertainment in each neighborhood so i typically hit up only one area of town on a given evening, depending on which friends i'm with (or visiting).
berkeley is nice and chill and bike-friendly, but it's also tiny compared to LA (18 vs 500 sq. miles).
I unfortunately don't see them being any kind of major replacement for anything in Seattle anytime soon unless the Mayor actually puts high tolls on downtown exits -- especially since we have fairly good public transit.
Have you tried and confirmed you can make it up the hill with little to no issues?
Traffic is pretty bad at core times and the hassle of parking adds quite a bit of time at each end.
It's also a great fit because traffic SUUUUCKS and there are a lot of healthy people who buy into the concept.
It's....Dallas! We have over 20,000 bikes in the city now.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-bike-share-regulat...
Europe and Asia seem like the most important markets for the technology rather than the US which is littered with sprawled out cities.
Since the dockless bikes did not ask for permission of the city, they're now forbidden and the few I've seen were in a bad state.
ebike sales are growing rapidly and in general will start to shape cities in europe very rapidly. That will trickle over to the US in a lot of the big cities that are already dense, and then shift over to the less dense but flatter cities (think LA!)
I've been seeing these scooters popping up all over SF including Lime and Spin branded ones.
I hope to see more of them spring up as a viable alternative to using a car to get everywhere. Though I see the lack of helmets being included with these as a disaster waiting to happen.
I've rode a personal electric scooter for over a year now and I can say a helmet is a must. The biggest dangers I've seen is clueless uber/ lyft drivers cutting you off (happens a lot) and pot holes / cracks in the pavement. They travel at 10+ mph so if you hit a big enough pot hole your going to eat it.
Outside of Europe what would you consider the major non car-centric cities?
An e-bike can go 20 miles comfortably which means you could take it to work, lock it up and charge at work, and ride back in the evening for most commutes. I'd guess about 30 minutes is the upper bound average for most commuters that would ride a bike to work. Seattle and SF are perfect for pedal assist e-bikes because hills feel like flat roads, and their public transit system isn't nearly as good as NY
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-traffic-los-angeles...
And maybe you haven't been to NYC in a while because although there is lots of mass mass transit, that does not make it non car-centric. It most certainly has a car traffic problem. Just because you don't have to own a car does not make a city non-car centric.
If you look at the inrix score care you will LA is number 1 for traffic and NYC is number 3.
American cities were built for the car.
African cities are growing rapidly and can be built for the car, the bike, or something else entirely.
But even if you are right I don't understand why Uber is eager to buy in now. If this takes off so much that Uber is obliged to get in on the action, they can wait. It strikes me as like Apple with MP3 players or smartphones or smartwatches: it's cheaper and easier to let somebody else prove the market and then just come in and crush everybody.
Of course, that may not translate to every city but I think it will move across the US much faster than pure dockless schemes.
For your question on why not? I bet being able to move a significant number of trips by volume from your competitors back onto your platform is well worth the cost and mind share that you could build. (e.g. no bikes available? How about you take this uber for x% off instead!)
> it's cheaper and easier to let somebody else prove the market and then just come in and crush everybody.
before there is a dominant player
WRT to your Apple and MP3 market, Microsoft tried the same thing with it's Zune, and failed miserably.
In particular, you've had to lock up your bike and still had it/parts stolen - not your problem if it's not your bike. Not being your bike also takes care of the maintenance - not your bike means it's not your problem! (I mean, don't go around trashing their bikes for the sake of it, but it means you don't have to worry about the derailleur alignment or tire/rim sizes.) There's the logistics of biking - if you go out, but take a taxi home, then you have to come back to get your bike later. Jump means you don't have to, and if you don't bike back, you can take an Uber instead.
You've definitely had a car almost kill you - likely more than once. The new protected lanes that are popping up all over the city don't make that problem go away, but it's a big step forwards.
Imagine having never experienced being almost killed by a car.
Finally, there's that whole pedaling thing. Not to be (further) presumptuous, but I'm guessing somewhere in the 10+ years, there's a stop sign that's been run. If you stop, then you have to start again. That gets old pretty quickly on any street with stop signs every block. Jump bikes being electric makes that stop being such a workout.
None of these problems are truly insurmountable - as your experience proves! There are other problems w/ bicycling that Jump doesn't solve, but Uber's bet is the kind of friction that Jump does solve, will make this purchase profitable for them, $2 for 30 mins at a time.
Finally, since Uber knows where its riders have been dropped off, it's able to use that data to move Jump bikes around the city to optimize their placement.
If you wait until something's a "sure" thing, then it's too late - the price has gone up, so there's less money to be made. The time to buy BTC was 10 years ago, not now, but if you think it's this weird sketchy thing now, 10 years ago it was E-gold 2.0.
But again, even if you are exactly right, it won't be too late for Uber. Either they'll be successful, and so have plenty of money, or they'll be troubled, and this business won't be nearly enough to save them. And in the meantime, it's at best a giant distraction, and at worst they smother it, as happens all the time with large-company acquisitions.
Compare with Apple. They were 3 years behind on smartwatches, 4 years behind on MP3 players, 6 on smartphones. It didn't matter, because they had skills, assets, and market power. It was better for them to wait and let others prove the market and then come in when the shape of consumer need and likely solution was clearer. I think the same would be true if Uber were a successful, stable company.
That is literally what people said about Segways.
Bit of exercise and gets you there faster and cheaper.
Ride-sharing suffers from the problem of clustered networks - you can be a global player like Uber and still lose the entire city of SF to a competitor like Lyft, or feel a minnow like Juno tear into your margins in NYC.
Having bike sharing in your pocket helps you build a wider moat around these clustered networks. If I typically take a bikeshare to the subway every morning, and rarely Uber on the weekend, Uber might win 10 low-margin trips from me during the week (bikeshare to and from the subway every day), and through the use of a loyalty program incentivize me to make my 2 high-margin weekend ridesharing trips Uber trips.
So yes, it is an adjacency, and it is lower margin than ridesharing and capital intensive, but this is a difficult market and at this point in the game it might make sense.
While it still takes a leap of faith to buy, the argument is sound. And using some other posters' terminology, we can put it like this:
If this works, it will drive significant revenue growth and consolidation of both the rideshare and bikeshare markets.
If it fails, meh. It's just "rounding error."
Seems like a low-risk, high reward proposition to me, the way you stated it.
The two valuable things Uber has is customer credit cards on file and an app installed on their devices. Deals like this that add to those is valuable, and is a barrier to their current and future competitors.
Bringing other transport methods under the Uber umbrella seems like a play to keep you opening the Uber app when you want to go somewhere, rather than opening somebody else's app and selecting Uber.
Note that Mark Zuckerberg could have sold Facebook early on for a variety of "he gets rich" prices: http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-ever-t...
And I'd add that anybody who gets into doing a startup only because they want to be rich is probably better off buying lottery tickets.
As for Jump;
https://www.crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/field/organ...
They just announced a $10M series A in January. To cash out at a $100M valuation doesn't seem like a bad outcome; after just doing just a series A, the founders' stake is likely to be in the 25-50% range (I'd guess in the lower end).
Obviously the zeitgeist is to shoot for a unicorn, but there are plenty of reasons to chose an earlier exit, only some of which suggest that the underlying business is shaky.
(Dodgeball sounds like a great deal BTW; rest & vest for a year or two, and then go start your company again except this time without having to bring in outside funding for your seed).
Citibike is similar, its not a cash cow but every single bike is painted up in Citibank livery and logos.
Bike sharing is therefore complementary to "ride sharing" and having the two within one system could potential improve both.
I remember my time as a freshman, getting a bike from Walmart became a necessity after the first couple weeks.
After every winter, I had to fix or buy a new bike just because parts got rusty, broked or vandalize.
So I would totally be happy to just use a shared bike if it was available back then.
If they combine accounts there will be true synergy though: many people either have zero rideshare accounts or almost all of them, the famous lack of moat. The same is probably true where multiple bikeshares are available. Those who have zero accounts in one "x-share" group and multiple in the other would be 100% locked to Uber when they occasionally do cross over from bikeshare to rideshare or vice versa.
You are 100% right with this being just a drop in the bucket though.
But...
From Uber's perspective, they have a lot of cash right now. They are worried about a self driving future where Waymo takes all the rides from them. Drivers are expensive (at least half the ride price), and electric assist bikes removes driver wages from the ride expense. And really what is Uber's big monopoly advantage? Just the 2 sided market, but it's local. With a 1000 drivers + advertising you could compete in a local market with them. Right now they are subsidizing a lot of their rides with the world's largest pool of capital, but eventually their capital will run down. If this is a good business they will get competition.
The shared bike business is capital intensive (buying bikes, building infrastructure) but that capital actually buys you some monopoly moat power. It's a really tough business for a startup to be in, but a pretty good fit for a big company. Uber could also do some cool things like a long haul Uber carpool to a bunch of Jump bikes just outside of downtown. Ie. shuttle up 101 to SF, Jump bike to get you through traffic.
For the Jump founder, they have been working on social bikes since 2010, the Uber deal probably includes a cash payout for some of their stock (often after a year). A reasonable guess is that the first 7 years of that were starvation times with a capital intensive business and low capital. At this point the founders might have 20 to 60 percent of the company, with half their stock paid for in cash they might get 10 to 30 million dollars in a year plus the same amount in Uber stock, which is pretty liquid. Plus whatever new grant in Uber stock they get for staying on (it would not be weird if this was another 5-10 million per executive over 5 years). And fundraising is just a massive pain.
From the Jump CEO's perspective:
Sell
$10-40 million / founder, almost certain payout
Never fundraise again
Lose company (everyone pretends, but that's what happened)
Still get to run company for a few years
Slowly watch your good culture be consumed by Uber's bad culture.
Compete
Compete with
- the 3 electric scooter startups that have launched in SF in last 2 weeks
- Uber and Lyft
- buses
- Go bikes
- self owned bikes and ebikes
- driving personal cars
2-7 years of hard work before cash, but then more money
Go before Board of Supervisors meetings to explain your plan for fishing bikes out of the bay
Keep company and autonomy
Make vision a reality
IMO Uber Pool/Lyft Line has gotten so slow (I'm sure Pool/Line's share of total rides vs regular X/Lyft is more than 80% in many cities now) for short to med distances that powered bikes has become more and more appealing.
There are many comments online about how awesome electric bikes are and many skeptical responses. I think the basic divide comes down to one thing: Has the person tried an electric bike? Almost everyone who has immediately sees them as awesome. Many who haven't don't get the point.
There are finally some reputable electric bikes available for around $1,000 (https://www.propella.bike/products/singlespeed), but most people want transportation without having to deal with hassle on either end.
Probably depends on your goals as well.
I got one of those 2-stroke engines to put on my bike a while ago and when it arrived I was looking at it and thinking "if I put this thing on my bike I'll never get any exercise". Instead I went to the pawn shop and got another bike and put it on that one instead -- and it sits in the corner unused to this day. One of these years I'll get it out and ride it around because it's actually pretty nice looking, a "lowrider" beach cruiser that fits the engine perfectly like they were made for each other.
I'd love something like Jump in Austin for trips when it's hot out, or longer distances.
"San Francisco" it is not. Which I guess is fine, but they make you pay up-front, so I found that a bit of cheek.
Admittedly it's only $2, but even on principle it's annoying. They should be much more transparent in the signup process. They even geolocate you, so they'd be aware you're out of their coverage zone.
Edit: This is the coverage map: https://www.evernote.com/l/ACu5gnYkvnNKq6r8MPguZAczRDuT1B7p6...
Irrespective, would still be easy (and overall nicer) if they made that transparent.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/bike-battle-ignited-rentals-fear-f...
Edit: The lack of bikeshare on 24th street is a separate issue with Calle 24, which could reasonably be called NIMBYism.
My main niggle is a UX one. They really need to communicate the coverage in the signup process (especially if you're outside it when you sign up).
To their supreme credit - I contacted support asking clarification. They got back to me with an answer in minutes. Plus they refunded my initial payment.
i dont see any of the ford or jump bikes around. i think they are just so awash in parts and frames, there really isn't any strong pull to try to mine the bike rental stream. the frames in particular are probably worthless except as steel scrap.
i wonder about the battery/motors though.
You can read more about the bikes at http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/fixing-bixis-near...
It's worth noting that taking public transit (Muni bus) between these same two points takes at least 30 minutes (good day, light traffic, no mentally disturbed people interrupting the driver) and has taken as long as 55 minutes. A Lyft is also reliably slower, especially in the evening rush hour.
To be honest, the time taken is not such a huge deal. The bigger draw, by far, is that riding the electric bike is completely effortless, and usually quite fun. And it's also important that they are extremely handsome, I don't feel like a goober when I'm on them. Riding the city bikes, in comparison, is a completely different experience. You feel how big and heavy they are, you can easily work up a sweat, and they're not handsome machines, everyone looks a little bit like a doofus on them.
But generally, I'm riding my own bike and the days where I'm taking transit+bikeshare are rather low.
How so? We have dockless bikes here (the Chinese Mobike) but it seems like you never know where to pick them up. At less with the public bikes, I know where is the closest docking station to my house.
That's a major design failure on their part then. Seattle's dockless bikes all have GPS trackers so you can see them on a map on the phone app.
Which is to say, when people displace the bikes "manually", the maps are no longer accurate.
If we get a whole city of people doing it, even if they get the cops what are they going to do? arrest 500-1000 people?
In my city, we started with docked, but after a dockless company arrived, literally no-one uses the docked bikes - why put up with the extra hassle of having to return the bikes for no user benefit?
The prices are already so low that I can't really see them being able to compete on price, so the only differentiating factor is ease of use, which dockless will always win on.
Also, in reply to a sibling comment, we have a pretty serious bike theft problem here, but they mostly don't bother with the dockless bikes except as a mode of transportation. Speculatively, perhaps most bike theft profits are in the gray market (i.e. Craigslist), where these highly-recognizable bikes can't be unloaded?
What about the extra hassle of finding and walking with your map to your dockless bike? (if you are lucky enough to find one close to you)
Also in both cities I lived, docking stations are everywhere, it has never been a problem (maybe once or twice a year when my usual docking station was full. Still, I just needed to go the next one, 5 min from there).
Although, last time I mentioned it here someone said they've had problems with the position detection, such that they kept being charged despite leaving it near a dock.
A dock is always placed in a location agreed by the council. It’s guaranteed to not be in anyone’s way or a safety hazard.
Maybe the dockless users in your city are more conscious. In mine, they will happily leave their rentals blocking the footpath. I constantly need to stop my child’s pram and move the bike out of the way.
Dockless bikes are an appropriation of public spaces by private companies and need to stop.
I'll support this, as soon as we reclaim the millions of square feet of private space appropriated by curbside parking. This would free up enough space for everyone, and their extended families to park their bikes.
If every block in my neighborhood has room for free parking for ~40 cars, then surely we could reclaim a few of those spots, for the sake of free parking for a greater number of dockless bikes.
There should be a parking spot for bicycles on every single block. Just like we have 40 spots to park cars on every block.
Rarely do I see anyone actually riding them though.
I’m hoping for regulation to come soon.
They finally set up a system where there's an employee waiting by a popular downtown bike rack to manually check in your bike because the rack would otherwise be full with a line of other people waiting for an open slot.
As far as Ofo picking up the bikes on their end... that's probably a nightmare. That being said, there is a Data Skeptic - Bike Share Rebalancing[1] episode so I'm sure there are data scientists optimizing the pickup and distribution algorithm to make deckles cheaper or as cheap as docked bikes.
Sounds nice, but what do you do when someone else takes the bike while you’re eating? Whe I hear ‘dockless’ I think about the hassle of finding a bike where I want it, not the convenience of not having to drop it off...
As of about a month or two ago, I have seen these Jump bikes pop up around the streets I frequent, even seeing a row of 4 of them at some point parked in a bookstore's bike rack parklet as if it were a dock made for them. I was considering trying out Jump up until this announcement, but I essentially can't use Bay Area Bike Share because there aren't any docks at any point in the city where I would ride to.
I was an avid user and rode an average of four times a day!
A few months later, they started charging $2 if you didn’t lock a bike to the dock. This made for a pretty good a/b test of usage... I started using them only maybe once or twice a month!
I’d say dockless is about 50x better than docked.
And since bird showed up here (dockless e-scooters) I basically never use the breeze bike share anymore, despite having prepaid for a year of it.
I think the electricity probably makes it again 2x better and the scooter makes it again 2x better.
So overall, dockless e-scooters are maybe 200x better than docked bike shares!
Dockless E-Scooters, to me, just feel like the winner. They take up much less space on the sidewalk than the bikes.
People are getting very sick of seeing them laying all around and its starting to go the way of Paris, whose people rose up against the bike share companies and got them to pull out through sheer vandalism.
Someone cut one in half and mounted it on a telephone pole the other day
I think you're confusing the cause for the vandalism, it is much more "casual", the bikes are vandalised because they are there and the companies stupidly provided fragile bikes. Also the opposition from the city council did not help.
- Why do they need to be electric? Bicycles are phenomenally efficient, even for people who aren't in "good shape." In SF you can find routes around the really crazy hills. Furthermore, electric bikes reduce the barrier to entry for douches to "go cruising". Every day (NYC) I almost get hit by one of these things buzzing around. I'm sure these bikes are less powerful, but come on, exercise!
- Dockless. There is plenty of room for docks, USE THE ROADS. This video does a great job showing how inefficient cars are with space: https://vimeo.com/223171024. It's not right for a company to co-opt public space with their bikes. These should be designed into cities. It's not hard; make space.
I use Jump regularly to run errands when I'm downtown and it's much easier to pickup/drop off bikes than it would be worrying about my own expensive bike getting stolen. These aren't quite dockless as they have to locked up properly and are tracked by the app/gps.
- fan out / fan in. in the morning commute centers (bart, caltrain) will have X bikes in the dock and many times that riders that want a bike. in the evening commute centers will have X dock spots, but many times that riders trying to drop off a bike
- building docks is extremely expensive and time consuming. they should be designed into cities? sure, i agree. but you are talking about doing a public construction project that has to get approved by a planning committee, funded, scheduled, passed all kinds of environment and safety checks, and then a few years and $3,000,000 later a 10-space dock appears on some streets. having the space for docks is not the problem
The dockless bit has been a very big draw for me because the Ford bikes do not have docks out in my neighborhood and do not plan to in the near future. My neighborhood is also somewhat NIMBY: the local merchants association has been very opposed to the BRT project that is going to happen on the main street through the neighborhood because they claim that the decrease in car parking spaces and traffic will cause them to lose business. I wouldn't be surprised if they would resist bike docks as well. For now, dockless is a good short-term solution.
As a sport Horse riding is actually one of the more dangerous ones.
They have become urban clutter. Users park them in locations where they’re easily knocked over and, from there, they usually get damaged.
There’s also a very high incidence of vandalism. Bikes with no seats, no pedals, bent wheels, on top of trees, in canals.
It’s common to see heaps of scrap bikes on the road. These companies not only are using public land to offer their services but also polluting my city.
All this has made me a vocal opposer of dockless rentals. Work with city council to put your bikes on a dock or don’t come here.
These bikes are using public land for free.
Maybe that is the compromise. No docks, but have to be locked to some sort of normal bike rack to prevent clutter. The manufacturer / city isn't responsible for maintaining expensive dock infrastructure where company A cant use company B's docks, and apartments & businesses can create bike parking space in an adhoc manner, making the over all market more efficient.
Being serious, I have no idea.
I think all bike systems will need rebalancing of some sort. Be it through cheaper pricing or other incentives or something else.
Edit: I should add, please don't buy into the idea that people walking and bicycling should fight over the scraps of space left over after nearly everything is given to cars.
Cycling is awesome. Let's fix how they coexist on roads.
As for "piled up against buildings" just give me a break already. https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&source=hp&q=car+crash... The aesthetic argument is by far the stupidest argument against bike shares.
A misplaced share bike is daily life in cities with lots of shares.
I’m not particularly against them, but they can turn into more of a nuisance than a benefit quickly.
You like the bike shares you’ve used, or you don’t know why people complain?
Because if it’s the latter, the main reason is they can easily become a nuisance:
https://www.twitter.com/hashtag/DocklessBikeFail
People abuse them, and when/if the programs fail you end up with stories like this:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/25/chinas-bike-...
Contrary to what you may believe, you’re not allowed to leave a car wherever you feel like it at a given moment.
You can’t even leave your own person sprawled out on whatever public surface pleases you.
No idea how this is a “huge victory”
Judging by your username and a serious hatred for cars, I'm guessing you might be letting bias cloud your judgement here...
I don't want to leave in large part because of it actually.
I think you're overlooking many significant use cases for shared bikes. Here's a few: - It's well below freezing out and you just want to quickly get from your apartment to the train station, drop the bike off and forget about it. - You won't be returning to that station to pick the bike back up later. - Bike to the grocery store. Walk back carrying several big bags. - Take the train into work in the morning, bike back when you have more time or energy. - Getting from one point to another where a cab would be overkill but walking take too long. - You want to bike to places, but don't want to deal with lugging your bike up 5 flights of stairs several times a day or don't have room to store it if you do.
The summary is that shared bikes let you ride in situations which you normally wouldn't. (And of course for many casual riders it can easily be their only bike.)
Another thing not mentioned is how nice it is for people who are from out of town, either as tourists or nomads or in for work. I lived/worked in Taipei for a month, and bike share is part of the government transit program, first 30 minutes free, and you can access it with your subway transit card. This singlehandedly made me love the city.
I had actually forgotten I still own a personal bike until writing this reply.
Can't get planning permission for a shed in your front garden to put a bike in so if you're in a standard UK terrace you have to carry a bike through your house or keep it inside. This makes storage an utter pig and daily use is practically ruled out unless you want a house full of dirty drips and wheel marks. Richer friends have semis, so have side access or driveways.
Servicing needs tools, not too many but a few, and skill (not a problem for me). Cost is a couple £hundred for a decent bike, I can't find any second hand that appear to be working for less than £50 in my area, I think the bike thieves actually inflate prices. Those bikes are barely usable IME. £80 for a 2nd hand bike, or £100-120 for a really crappy new bike.
I love biking, can't afford the bus, but also can't really afford to keep a decent bike. With access I'd ride 3 days out of 7 as a minimum.
/anecdata
No helmets, no seats, bent wheels. Left in the middle of side walks. Left on other people’s property. In trees.
The people who typically use them are casual bikers too, so they use the side walk instead of the roads.
No idea about the below freezing stuff.
Maybe dockless would be nice on a beach with a boardwalk, but in a city? Where are they going to go? And I have a hard time imagining anywhere with a typical not NYC or main downtown area population density will keep them moving enough. I’m happy to be proven wrong though.
Does anyone have experience with these?
Everyone riding a bike used to deal with the same problems. Unfortunate as those problems are they could happen to a rich person, a poor person, or anyone in between which is an equitable sharing of the social cost. The privileged people used to be able to easily spend more money to replace a stolen bike which is the problem Jump solves for the people that can afford it. That's now a bigger burden on the people who can't afford Jump and are less likely to afford replacing a stolen bike at all.
Plus it can't get stolen.
I guess if you use it every day it does add up to a new cheapest walmart bike every 45 rides. Hmm.
I also use a Boosted Board because I break even wrt Uber every 3 months or so. But if I didn't have $1600 to spend on that purchase, then all the future savings in the world wouldn't mean shit.
Find your Jump hasn't been charged and is dead? Take an Uber
Jumps are a little more expensive after a price increase? Take an Uber
It sounds like boom times for Dallas scrap dealers. No one who has ever been to Dallas could ever think this makes sense: Dallas and Fort Worth are about 80 km in diameter, and unpleasantly hot and humid for about half the year. No one wants to rent electric pseudo-scooters there.
The issue that's immediately apparent to anyone who actually goes there is that the sidewalks are littered with dozens of bikes, most of which have tipped over. The docks at least force you to keep the bikes somewhat organized and out of the way.
Why are motorized vehicles allowed on bike lanes just because they have electric motors instead of gas?
I'm also totally blown away by Seattle's disregard for helmet laws to enrich some venture capitalists. We didn't even bother repealing the helmet law, we just don't enforce it.
The Jump bikes in SF use 250W motors, which, when going uphill, is similar to having an extra person helping you pedal.
People should be a little more careful on these because these bikes can go pretty fast. That said, from my own experience using Jump bikes in SF, people on road bikes still zoom by me regularly on streets.
In Seattle you have to wear seatbelts in cars and helmets on motorcycles and bicycles. In the case of bike shares and e-bikes we seem to just ignore those rules. If we can ignore them in one case why not ignore them in all cases?
It strikes me as a double standard that benefits venture capitalists more than the public.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws#United_S...
CPSC rules stipulate that low speed electric bicycles are exempt from classification as motor vehicles providing they have fully operable pedals, an electric motor of less than 750W (1 hp), and a top motor-powered speed of less than 20 miles per hour (32 km/h) when operated by a rider weighing 170 pounds
You're right that Seattle should've taken the time to actually repeal the helmet law. Your comparison of riding helmetless while cycling compared to a motor cycle is a bit much though don't you think? Seat belt laws have much stronger evidence in their favor. Helmet laws are not a panacea for cycling safety and could actually be harmful to both cyclists and to the general population.
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/06/02/why-helmets-arent-the...
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/11/10/more-evidence-that-he...
This anti VC angle you're taking is bizarre. How does increased access to transportation not benefit the public?
I don’t mind if investors make money. I mind when they circumvent our laws and endanger the public to do so.
I also admit to some ignorance about e-bikes which has now been cleared up by you and sibling commenters.
My comparison to motorcycle helmet laws and seat belt laws was just to reinforce that if we are going to selectively enforce the bicycle helmet law we should just repeal it because it’s clearly not as important as motorcycle helmets or car seat belts.
I have been following the story of bike share in Seattle. It's a shame that Pronto and Motivate lost the contract.
[1] https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/04/how-effective...
When I took the MSF class there was talk of repealing the motorcycle helmet law for similar reasons. Not sure how I feel about that. It apparently came with an automatic DNR provision if you crash without a helmet.
Dockless bicycles in Melbourne are being thrown into the river at an alarming rate, because people are sick of companies relying on littering in public as a business model.
So of course Uber is joining the party.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
Users often post workarounds in the threads (edit: as someone now has in this one).