Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike
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It is awful.
The bikes: big, heavy and ugly. Due to their sheer weight, peddling up the gentlest of hills will make you question your life choices, and consider other, much faster options, like walking, or just gently slithering around the pavement.
Additionally, Motivate's chosen method of bike cleaning - a dude hosing them down - tends to leave the bikes drenched with ice cold water. I suppose the feeling of freeze gnawing at your body does act as a replacement for caffeine for some, but I find it very unwelcoming.
The stations: Sparse, not well maintained, and honestly, an eyesore. They're this giant, lumbering object that takes away precious public resources, and is only available for Motivate's usage. You also constantly have to plan around them -- is there one next to where I want to go? Is it almost full?
E-Bike deployment: what a joke. They are rarely available, and even you've spotted one of these precious unicorns, you'll often by greeted by a beaming red dot, indicating that the bike is unwell, likely due to the battery giving up in the middle of day.
Other than that, the app spams you with ads, many of which are strangely enough for buying an e-bike. I thought this company is about bike sharing??
Having tried many of these services, I find the electric scooters to be the most enjoyable, although the electric bikes are quite fun too and can be a better experience if you're carrying something which can be put in the basket.
I have no hard data to prove this, though I'm sure it's out there- I don't think it's bike vs scooter, it's electric vs human powered that's driving bird's popularity over bike shares.
The scooters have been a good lesson for us as they've highlighted the importance of fun and friendliness in a shared vehicle. I don't think any of the shared ebikes are coming close to the right combination of factors that make people want to ride them. Scooters have nailed it, but their big problem is how easy it is to copy the model.
0-2miles - Scooters (or walk),
2-5miles - Electric Bikes (or Uber),
5-15miles - Uber/Lyft
It is a nice little transportation stack Uber and Lyft are fighting over.
0-1 miles: walk 1-10 miles: e-bike or bus or lyft 10-100 miles: regular bike or train > 100 miles: car
I've given up traveling via bike after losing my wheels to theft. My friend got his u-lock + loop locked bike's seat stolen while grabbing food to go at the Westfield food court around lunchtime.
> 10-100 miles: regular bike or train
SF to San Jose is 55 miles. To think you'd consider biking twice that is... crazy to me. More power to you I suppose.
I admired his general health and determination. His alternative was a reasonably fast train; including walking at each end it was at most ⅓ of the time.
I think the most I ever cycled is about 80km/day, for a five-day cycling "holiday" in the low countries. It was a great trip, but I was completely exhausted at the end of each day.
Also bring your bike on the train, and then going the last 2 miles to your actual destination is pretty annoying too. It's much nicer to just grab a bike at the station and then leave it at work.
Buses being at the whim of traffic while costing only 15-20% less than Uber Express for 5-10miles while offering none of the live-information means its a no-go for me.
I've spent far too long waiting in various weather conditions, hoping the bus arrives on time. So even up to a 30-40% premium to just hop into a car makes sense to me.
In Seattle, buses have had GPS trackers for years. A lot of stops use that data for "time of arrival" displays. There is also a publicly available feed of that data, lots of apps out there that remind people when to leave their office to go out and catch their bus.
More bus only lanes would be nice!
At this point, I think signal prioritization and finishing the planned bus/streetcar jumps should yield significant reliability improvements in Seattle. If the #8 could just be timely, it would be a boon for anyone going from Queen Anne to downtown, Cap Hill, South Seattle or vice versa. Its sad that the I-5 commuters essentially wreck its schedule by parking in the road on Denny.
a) Potholes
b) Uphill (where the electric bikes fare much better)
The scooters are just much less of a hassle (no need to lock etc.) for quick rides and more fun
There's simply no room to have lots of discarded dockless bikes/scooters in such an environment where there isn't even enough room to walk, and they would be treated poorly. Docks/exclusion zones for the most congested foot traffic areas are necessary.
And have you ever seen a picture of most British cities - there’s barely enough room for cars and pedestrians sometimes, never mind a whole separate lane for cyclists/etc.
I was surprised at how much, so started to do the same thing with the local bike share which had been around for a couple years and covered exactly the same area (with more bikes than bird had scooters at the time).
Bird was already doing 7x the daily rides that the bike share was!
So in this scenario you might see someone ride the bike from their apartment downtown, but during the day use a scoot to get between meetings, to a lunch venue, to the bar after work again and then maybe ride a bicycle home at the end of the day if not catch a car.
Off hand I'd say scooters are much more filling a vacant market, whereas the bike sharing competes more with uber or lyft in the first place.
https://www.limebike.com/hubfs/Assets/bike-s-2.jpg?t=1530481...
Here is what much of the world thinks is a scooter:
https://emmy-sharing.de/wp-content/uploads/Schwalbe_45-links...
Just to clear that up. If it was between those two I'd take the latter given that hitting a pothole on that Lime thing is liable to stop all forward momentum suddenly and precariously. But really I'd want the electric bike.
Though I think the unstated single most important selling point for the Lime scooter over the electric bike is that you don't need to deal with the homicidal, low awareness, little education American driver and the abhorrent infrastructure (and policies) that enable them.
Except you do some places. In San Francisco it is illegal to ride an e-scooter on the sidewalk. You are supposed to ride in the bicycle lanes.
How so? Both Lime scooters and electric bikes are supposed to be ridden in bike lanes on the road, although enforcement can be hit-or-miss.
There are electric versions of both.
Probably half the younger children round here have a normal kick scooter. They can "walk" with their parents much further without getting tired.
Didn't think of this. Makes sense why they're doing well on the West Coast but not yet rolling out on New York's ice-torn streets.
I signed up as an early adopter because 2 of the first 5 stations they installed essentially cut a 30 minute walk to the central train station into a 7 minute cycle. Cardiff was apparently NextBike's most successful UK city on the May bank holiday weekend. The bikes are largely well maintained and nobody seems to have vandalised them so far from what I've seen. Our cycle lanes are designed by blithering imbeciles, but that's pretty standard for the UK.
The ones here have docks, though they're in sensible places. I have seen a dockless system in Oxford and that also seemed to work well, mostly because of the sheer number of bikes around.
I know why the schemes are successful in Europe, but I can understand why people would be skeptical about their success in the US.
There are probably four or five competing services in my city and yet I have never actually seen a single person actually riding them. There are certainly people riding bikes but it's always their own bike.
Complications I See:
- There's a pretty narrow window between a distance that's too far to walk but impractical to hire a car. And since ride sharing is super cheap for this use-case it's a tough market.
- It's useless if people are unfit to drive: injury, tired, drunk, etc..
- It's not great for going places with friends because it doesn't take a very large group before someone isn't fit to bike. Also, for 6 people each taking a bike is $24 for a 30 min ride. Any ride sharing company will be cheaper than that, you don't have to work, and you'll get there much faster than 30 min.
- Everyone except literally the current user of a dockless bike is going to hate them so you're limited to where the company has docking stations. They're going to be the fastest vandalized property.
- Anyone who's actually into riding bikes will just buy one. If you're going to be on them for an extended period of time you're going to want one that's light, comfortable, well maintained, and correctly sized for you. I would think these would be your loyal customers but it's exactly the opposite of what they want.
- Technically you're not guaranteed a bike back from wherever you go. Although in practice you probably will since in all likelihood you're the only user of this particular service.
- Your biggest market would be commuters who want to save on paying for a car/taxi/subway but people with regular destinations should reasonably just buy a mid-tier bike.
There aren't even any Citibike docks near where I live but the utility in the city core is almost unmatched. Obviously there are situations where bike(+ bike shares) are less than ideal (ridership goes down in winter/rain/hot days/ect., disabled users) but they are a great boon to the mobility of people living in dense cities.
Some interesting reads: http://toddwschneider.com/posts/taxi-vs-citi-bike-nyc/ http://toddwschneider.com/posts/a-tale-of-twenty-two-million...
> There's a pretty narrow window between a distance that's too far to walk but impractical to hire a car.
This just isn't true in denser European-style cities. If you live centrally, everything is about 30-45 walk away. It's uncomfortable to walk but comfortable to cycle.
> Everyone except literally the current user of a dockless bike is going to hate them so you're limited to where the company has docking stations. They're going to be the fastest vandalized property
No particular argument against it except the fact that I've seen the product in action and nobody hates it.
> Anyone who's actually into riding bikes will just buy one
True but there's also a lot of value in a bike that you dont have to maintain, store, or bring home. You can ride out and taxi home. You can ride downhill and taxi back up.
> Technically you're not guaranteed a bike back from wherever you go
This is true, it basically limits the user base to centrally-based people (you can always find a bike in the centre of town) and so probably means it's only a viable product in some cities.
In summary the product is a trade-off against other modes of transport, but it definitely has its place and seems to be working in quite a few cities.
PS finally it's just the cheapest way for an individual to travel, by a long way. For lots of people a nearly £5 return bus journey is a concern and the reduction to £2 (in the particular case of my city) is a really meaningful saving. Taxis and ride-sharing probably aren't even on those people's radar.
I'm not going to hit every one of your points but would also like to add that 95% of the time, the bikes are in great shape and well-maintained. I don't know if that's due to a lack of vandalism, or regular maintenance, or both. I've logged hundreds of trips myself and only a few times have I had a broken bicycle.
There are a number of reasons it doesn't work well in the States, but broadly it boils down to a) fitness levels, and b) cultural values, that is, spending on car infrastructure helps American car manufacturers, American dealerships, and American car owners, whereas diverting money to bike infrastructure benefits liberal hippies or something.
ebikes directly address the fitness problem, and there are various technical reasons why they have not been viable until now, mostly boiling down to an improved Li-Ion supply chain. That said, a good ebike is still very expensive, and the ridesharing model works here for the same reason that people spend $15 to take a Lyft downtown instead of buying a $25k sedan they own.
The infrastructure problem is harder, but perversely, these services may be able to crack that one too. Uber/Lyft are quite famously adept at strongarming local governments and just in general the political system is more responsive to moneyed interests than hobbyists. Were bicycling to go from liberal hippie pasttime to Real American Business™ that may resolve the political will to improve the infrastructure. Now adding a bikelane is supporting American innovation and jobs (somebody has to charge those bikes) rather than diverting resources from them.
Cycling is not viable transportation in many areas, and you can't cherry pick a place like Copenhagen and use that to support a claim that it works everywhere.
Where I live, the weather is amenable to cycling maybe 4 months out of the year, and it's far faster to drive than cycle in any case.
I commute to work by bike throughout the year. Admittedly, I avoid the worst of the summer heat by adjusting my work hours so I leave for work before it gets too hot. Also, I'm kind of a freak in the sense that I don't sweat a lot.
If you're curious about this, the weather history feature for Weather Underground will produce nice graphs for most places worldwide.
In dense city environments:
* Fastest transit mode within a few miles (beats driving or Muni)
* Extremely cheap ($15/month)
* Much better than using my own bike for commuting purposes (no storage issues, flexible to switch transit modes, etc.)
* Mixed predictability compared to dockless such as Jump (more likely to be a nearby bike, less likely to be able to dock bike at destination).
Market wise, it's also great for last mile transit within an urban area, e.g. Commuters that commute into a dense city, but work a mile from the train station.
Also, vandalism, of either the bikes or the stations, has not been a serious concern, and they've been operating for almost a decade at this point. The construction of both is extremely sturdy, unlike most of the dockless entrants.
My bikes keep getting stolen. From a locked garage.
Bike rental services are a good solution to that problem! (Well at least from my point of view, heh)
- Storing a bike is a problem in cities like NYC and SF due to space constraints
- Electric bikes offer faster commute option than a regular bike but are more expensive to buy
- Bike theft is a really big problem in cities
- It's very convenient to have the option to ride a bike somewhere without worrying about carrying it around
It's definitely true that ride-sharing apps give bikes a run for their money, but it's worth pointing out that those apps are heavily subsidized by the investors on those companies' boards. $9 rides from one end of Brooklyn to the other will not last (see, for example, surge pricing -- when prices get REAL). I think, when we think about how to scale cities up going in the future, that cars cannot be how we hedge our bets. Their impact on the environment and people's healths and the rates of manslaughter should relegate them to a secondary mode of transportation. They're great for groups and for late-night insobriety, like you point out, but they should hopefully become a utility player in the landscape of things when we picture cities in, like, the year 2050 or the year 3000.
So in many ways bikes are an investment into the future. They've paid off in many places already, and hopefully as American cities move away from the sprawl (thank you, auto lobbies, for all you've given us) to something more modern they'll only become more relevant. It's also worth pointing out, I think, that bike-sharing networks can easily sustain other types of traffic. I see hip-looking people using electric skateboards in the bike lanes all the time, and I'm sure we'll eventually find a way to co-exist with the hoverboarders and the scooters once the panic over those modes of transportation die down. I believe the market behind bike-sharing is only going to grow and there's gold there, but what do I know.
EDIT: It looks like a lot of people jumped on you since I started writing this long comment, so I feel bad for piling on. Just wanted to chime in with one success story.
Bikes have to obey the same traffic rules as cars and you can get a DUI if you're intoxicated and riding.
[1] in most places, a yearly subscription brings the price down to $10-$20 a month.
[2] bike availability is sometimes constrained, sometimes ample. But it has nothing to do with the erroneous claim that no one else uses it.
[3] What 'bikers' want is a large and diverse array of different things. Some hate bikeshares. Some love it.
The concept of dual personal bikes on both ends of a regularly taken transit leg, but it comes worry a maintenance/trash problem surprisingly similar to dockless spam. European train stations are surrounded by reefs of semi-abandoned "away side" bikes.
A $500 scooter, with about a $2-$3 charge per trip breaks even in 166-250 trips, which is about 83 days if there are 3 trips a day. So in 2-3 months the devices pay for themselves. Yes there is vandalism and paying chargers, but the general principle stays about the same. And if you have bikes then you don't need chargers, just occasional collectors. If the scooters last for 1000 trips, then you have 750 trips of 'pure profit'.
Something like a $1000 heavy duty bike will cost more initially, but will last for many more trips.
Carrying a bike/scooter on the bus or subway is annoying, even when it's a 15lbs electric skateboard.
Lime's scooters have a 20 mile range and charge $.15/min + $1 per use[1]. So assuming an average speed of 10mph, using the full battery would be 120 minutes of use, which is $18. Then you add the $1 unlock fees which would of happened multiple times, and you have something of at least $20 average gross revenue per day of a 'fully used scooter'.
These scooter companies probably have better data on average usage, which is probably why they are getting such huge funding amounts due to the $$$ potential.
I hear this all the time, in my own city. I am not sure what you people are doing, but I have seen all the share bikes in my city used at different times, and quite a lot. I used them myself when I was a tourist in cities.
> There's a pretty narrow window between a distance that's too far to walk but impractical to hire a car.
For places I need to go, the window is pretty large, and the bike will usually get you there faster.
> It's useless if people are unfit to drive: injury, tired, drunk, etc..
But that's not usually the case.
> It's not great for going places with friends because it doesn't take a very large group before someone isn't fit to bike. Also, for 6 people each taking a bike is $24 for a 30 min ride. Any ride sharing company will be cheaper than that, you don't have to work, and you'll get there much faster than 30 min.
Renting bikes is free assuming everyone is a member. But yes, I find biking is usually for solo transportation, not groups.
> Everyone except literally the current user of a dockless bike is going to hate them so you're limited to where the company has docking stations. They're going to be the fastest vandalized property.
NYC has docking stations almost everywhere now, and I've never once seen one vandalized.
> Anyone who's actually into riding bikes will just buy one.
I own a bike for long-distance biking and exercising. Bike share is for getting around practically and quickly, and particularly unplanned trips. I'm not a "bike person" and I'd hate to have to bring my bike everywhere I go, it's a huge hassle. Citibike being everywhere makes so many small trips massively easier and faster than any other option (you're almost always faster than a car).
> Technically you're not guaranteed a bike back from wherever you go. Although in practice you probably will since in all likelihood you're the only user of this particular service.
90% of the time it's not a problem. When it is, you just fall back to whatever you would have used otherwise.
> Your biggest market would be commuters who want to save on paying for a car/taxi/subway but people with regular destinations should reasonably just buy a mid-tier bike.
I'm not sure very many people to it to save money. In NYC, it's just so much faster and more convenient than car/taxi/subway for a lot of trips.
Also, to clarify why Citibike can be faster than car or subway, it's because you always zoom past all the cars stopped in traffic (and NYC traffic spends a lot of time being stopped), and ~match their speed otherwise. The main use case is, say, going from 23rd and 8th to 45th and 3rd... not for going from Harlem to Wall St. A 30-min walk or a 20-min drive becomes an 8-min bike ride.
I have a sense with all the city/public push back against Lime bikes/ofo/bird etc. the big players are looking to soak up turf in case the regulations prevent dockless from expanding.
With permanent, known stations, a dock system can be more easily integrated into the existing public transportation network. This way the two systems can work together, and make the transportation of the region more efficient in general.
These bike share startups should honestly all be to some degree folded into the public transportation network in general. It should be a mid to long term goal for buses, bike share and metro to be able to use the same public transport metro card.
We've already seen many examples of this of dockless systems being a nuisance to businesses, local residents, and city governments. This is the sort of public service that doesn't make a lot of sense to be handled privately IMO.
Mobike (8 million bikes, founded 2015 [1]) and Ofo (3 million bikes, founded 2014 [2]) are the world's top two bike sharing operators. They also happen to be using dockless systems for their bikes, that have proven dockless systems have created nightmares in operation and maintenance cost, as well as the known oversupply and abandonment problems[3], let alone the uphill battle clashing with local governments and business in bike parking and storage. Dockless system is convenient from individual bike rider's perspective but it's more costly to operator in terms of operation(collection, redistribution etc.) and maintenance (bikes are more sophisticated due to the requirement of tracking and individually connected for rental transaction operation.)
There is a analogy to the dock system vs. dockless system debate: which ways of transportation is sustainable and logical? Private automobiles or public transit? From the micro-level, private automobiles provides convenience to individual drivers but creates much bigger problems in the macro-level, congestion, efficiency(due to vacant seats), parking etc.; whereas, public transit is always better in terms of transportation efficiency (higher number of multi-occupancy, much easier to scale up ridership, the whole point of sharing economy), easier to manage from traffic flow perspective and much cheaper in terms of operating cost both from operator's perspective and rider's perspective.
[1]: https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/mobike-statistics-fa...
[2]: https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/ofo-statistics/
[3]: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversup...
That's the way it works in Helsinki. In the summer docks appear, stocked with bicycles. If you look on the local transport-company website you can see a realtime map of the trams, busses, and the number of bikes available at each dock-site.
For example on the following map you can see the number of bikes available near my house:
https://www.reittiopas.fi/pysakit/HSL:1160404
It costs €25/month to be a member, and then you can ride any bike in the city for free for 30 minutes. After that you pay, or park your bike and take another.
I've never used them, because I grew up cycling on the other side of the road and I'm a little too nerveous to cycle here, but I suspect that fear will fade in a few more years.
That seems rather limiting. Here in Copenhagen, I don't know any GB/AU/NZ/etc people who can ride a bike but choose not to. I cycled from the airport to the city centre on my first day here...
It perhaps helps that I'm from SE England, so about once a year my dad would drive the car to (or through) France without a fuss.
Helsinki looks very green, I must plan a visit.
I'm exaggerating a little, but I know that the few times I've borrowed a bike from a friend to ride along a cycle-path my instictive reaction is always to turn the wrong way when going round corners/junctions/cross-roads.
Throw cars, trams, and buses into the mix? Well I think I'd have to be concentrating more than usual which makes me a little less keen. No doubt I'll relax over time.
Dockless scooters are the most effective thing I've seen yet - in very limited areas, so far - at starting to combat the limitations of the public transit network compared to the road/sidewalk/parking lot network. Bikes are too big to work well in this way, but scooters have done well.
But Birds are increasingly tempting because I usually see one within one to two blocks of my apartment.
When I was in SF for tourism a few years ago, it was a complete non-starter even though at a glance it seemed like the most promising option.
That's intentional - http://www.sfexaminer.com/transportation-officials-halt-fund...
It is around $150 a year in the Bay Area right now which makes it very economical if you can take the bike instead of the subway or a bus (i.e. just replace six bus trips per month.)
If only more people felt that way. But look at how many are too lazy/selfish to put away their shopping cart and leave it in a parking spot or propped up on a curb. Even though the docking stations are always close by in that case.
I realize there are also advantages to dockless (you don't have to walk the last bit when near your destination and maybe the bike is nearer to you when you start.)
These are just some ways in which using a dock are more convenient.
People have gotten in the habit of dumping their bikes on strangers' front lawns and laying them down on sidewalks without using the kickstand. There was a pretty public case of a blind man being seriously injured because someone left a bike just laying on the sidewalk.
In retaliation, much of the citizenry has taken to vandalizing the bikes. There are pictures online of people throwing them into ditches and creeks, people sawing the bikes in half, people turning masses of bikes into impromptu art sculptures, etc.
1. The bikes could have an orientation sensor that would require them to be upright before you can end your rental.
2. When a user picks up a bike, have them rate the appropriateness of how and where it was parked. Obviously, bad parking is not always the previous rider's fault, but if a consistent pattern emerges, you could penalize them in some way.
3. Dockless bikes presumably have GPS, so they could warn you if you're parking in an area that you shouldn't, if they had (crowd-sourced?) maps of what areas are good and bad.
4. If a bike is left somewhere that GPS says isn't good, offer other users incentives (free rental, etc.) if they will go pick it up. Basically this creates cheap labor to clean up messes.
Maybe these startup should work with the city councils to install similar bike parking in some locations, either by removing 1-2 car parking spaces (10-20 bikes?) or using otherwise wasted space.
There are lots of examples on http://www.copenhagenize.com/2013/04/using-street-space-for-...