4 ms·

How New York City's Bike Share Saved Itself

46 points by kevindeasis 11y ago

jbielick 11y ago
This is a really great piece. There truly was a massive shift in optimism for these systems when the New York and Chicago RFPs went out. I had my doubts about the sheer scale of these systems accompanying a smooth rollout and execution, but am thrilled to be mostly wrong. I'd love to know what kind of engineering challenges and missteps occurred in regards to station uptime, load-balancing bike availability, and reliability. Sounds like they're on the right foot now, but the bike share fleet Management software was an open field for a while. I believe Motivate Co is hiring Ruby engineer in NY if anyone's interested.
dsri 11y ago
Things have gotten a lot better over the past year with the NYC bike share, especially with maintenance, but there's still a ways to go. Generally speaking, if you're commuting, bike docks (where you pick up and drop off) are empty when you want a bike and full when you want to return one. The official Citibike app is also terrible, and the data Citibike makes available is often inaccurate (shows bikes or open slots when there aren't any). The app "Bike NYC" is a good (free) alternative, but obviously limited by data quality.
- szx 11y ago
  I recommend Citymapper. It's been super reliable and pretty accurate (although my impression may be colored by how bad the experience had been in previous years).
  - kh_hk 11y ago
    Unless they access a different data feed [1] [2], both should be as (in)accurate. [1]: https://www.citibikenyc.com/stations/json https://www.citibikenyc.com/stations/json [2]: https://member.citibikenyc.com/data/stations.json https://member.citibikenyc.com/data/stations.json
  - dhritzkiv 11y ago
    Another alternative is Transit. It supports bike share data in many cities, including New York. However, it's likely it suffers from the same data quality issues as the Citi Bike app.
- mizzao 11y ago
  Univelo NYC is a great app as well and pulls down updates very quickly.
- mattzito 11y ago
  > data Citibike makes available is often inaccurate (shows bikes or open slots when there aren't any) I'm not certain if you're seeing the same thing I am, but I've tracked the inaccuracy of the data for citibike back to an abnormally long refresh time when the app loads. So it preloads whatever the last view of the system is, and displays that as the truth, while it loads a new one in the background, which takes sometimes as long as 60 seconds. So I could see that looking like it's displaying inaccurate data, because it's unclear that it's refreshing the data.
kazinator 11y ago
Insufficient fender coverage for bad weather, oops: https://www.citibikenyc.com/meet-the-bike https://www.citibikenyc.com/meet-the-bike Both the front and back fender need to go way lower, e.g. https://janheine.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/singer1954.jpg https://janheine.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/singer1954.jpg Your feet will get sprayed on that thing because of the poor front fender, and your back will be sprayed because of the poor rear one. If you have a backpack that sticks out, it's right the line of fire. I can't believe they would replicate hundreds of bikes with this sort of obvious issue (to anyone who knows anything about year-round commuting on a bike).
- songshu 11y ago
  I've found they perform OK in the wet and rain, but that New Yorkers avoid using them anyway if it is raining. Other problems they have are a few with slippy gears (this can actually be dangerous), and many ~30% without working bells.
- samstave 11y ago
  They can be augmented with something as simple as these: https://snapguide.com/guides/install-leather-mud-flaps-on-your-bicycle-fender/ https://snapguide.com/guides/install-leather-mud-flaps-on-yo...
  - kazinator 11y ago
    I use Made-in-Germany SKS flaps, much like these: https://www.highonbikes.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/s/p/spoiler_xxl.jpg https://www.highonbikes.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/im... (Cannot easily find an image of this on the actual SKS website; maybe it's in their downloadable catalog.) There are longer ones: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41WJh%2BBKx0L._SX300_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41WJh%2BBKx0L._SX300_.... These can just slide on (a proper installation does require drilling a hole and putting in the plastic pin, but they will stay on without it, especially if it's a tight fit for the fender width). The user of a CityBike could bring their own, slip them on and then hopefully remember to take them off when done.
- 11y ago

46 points by kevindeasis 11y ago

This is a really great piece. There truly was a massive shift in optimism for these systems when the New York and Chicago RFPs went out. I had my doubts about the sheer scale of these systems accompanying a smooth rollout and execution, but am thrilled to be mostly wrong. I'd love to know what kind of engineering challenges and missteps occurred in regards to station uptime, load-balancing bike availability, and reliability. Sounds like they're on the right foot now, but the bike share fleet Management software was an open field for a while. I believe Motivate Co is hiring Ruby engineer in NY if anyone's interested.

dsri 11y ago

Things have gotten a lot better over the past year with the NYC bike share, especially with maintenance, but there's still a ways to go. Generally speaking, if you're commuting, bike docks (where you pick up and drop off) are empty when you want a bike and full when you want to return one. The official Citibike app is also terrible, and the data Citibike makes available is often inaccurate (shows bikes or open slots when there aren't any). The app "Bike NYC" is a good (free) alternative, but obviously limited by data quality.

szx 11y ago
I recommend Citymapper. It's been super reliable and pretty accurate (although my impression may be colored by how bad the experience had been in previous years).
- kh_hk 11y ago
  Unless they access a different data feed [1] [2], both should be as (in)accurate. [1]: https://www.citibikenyc.com/stations/json https://www.citibikenyc.com/stations/json [2]: https://member.citibikenyc.com/data/stations.json https://member.citibikenyc.com/data/stations.json
- dhritzkiv 11y ago
  Another alternative is Transit. It supports bike share data in many cities, including New York. However, it's likely it suffers from the same data quality issues as the Citi Bike app.
mizzao 11y ago
Univelo NYC is a great app as well and pulls down updates very quickly.
mattzito 11y ago
> data Citibike makes available is often inaccurate (shows bikes or open slots when there aren't any) I'm not certain if you're seeing the same thing I am, but I've tracked the inaccuracy of the data for citibike back to an abnormally long refresh time when the app loads. So it preloads whatever the last view of the system is, and displays that as the truth, while it loads a new one in the background, which takes sometimes as long as 60 seconds. So I could see that looking like it's displaying inaccurate data, because it's unclear that it's refreshing the data.

kazinator 11y ago

Insufficient fender coverage for bad weather, oops: https://www.citibikenyc.com/meet-the-bike https://www.citibikenyc.com/meet-the-bike Both the front and back fender need to go way lower, e.g. https://janheine.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/singer1954.jpg https://janheine.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/singer1954.jpg Your feet will get sprayed on that thing because of the poor front fender, and your back will be sprayed because of the poor rear one. If you have a backpack that sticks out, it's right the line of fire. I can't believe they would replicate hundreds of bikes with this sort of obvious issue (to anyone who knows anything about year-round commuting on a bike).

songshu 11y ago
I've found they perform OK in the wet and rain, but that New Yorkers avoid using them anyway if it is raining. Other problems they have are a few with slippy gears (this can actually be dangerous), and many ~30% without working bells.
samstave 11y ago
They can be augmented with something as simple as these: https://snapguide.com/guides/install-leather-mud-flaps-on-your-bicycle-fender/ https://snapguide.com/guides/install-leather-mud-flaps-on-yo...
- kazinator 11y ago
  I use Made-in-Germany SKS flaps, much like these: https://www.highonbikes.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/s/p/spoiler_xxl.jpg https://www.highonbikes.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/im... (Cannot easily find an image of this on the actual SKS website; maybe it's in their downloadable catalog.) There are longer ones: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41WJh%2BBKx0L._SX300_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41WJh%2BBKx0L._SX300_.... These can just slide on (a proper installation does require drilling a hole and putting in the plastic pin, but they will stay on without it, especially if it's a tight fit for the fender width). The user of a CityBike could bring their own, slip them on and then hopefully remember to take them off when done.
11y ago