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.
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
0-1 miles: walk 1-10 miles: e-bike or bus or lyft 10-100 miles: regular bike or train > 100 miles: car
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.