10 ms·
I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They'll likely reshape cities significantly as infrastruct
by maherbeg 9y ago
I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They'll likely reshape cities significantly as infrastructure gets improved for biking. You can get significant traffic density improvements by pushing bikes instead of cars, and e-bikes make this more accessible.
- fataliss 9y agoThat would take a lot of political will to do something like that though and it would take YEARS! I don't think the US is a great market (right now) for city-bikes. Outside of maybe Manhattan & SF I can't think of any major city where a bike would take you places faster/better than another way of transportation would. When you consider all the hassles that biking as a transportation comes with, I doubt this has any large potential (compared to the Uber scale). Could be wrong though. I actually really hope I am!
- electricEmu 9y agoSeattle? Portland? Minneapolis/St. Paul? You might consider bicycling while you travel more. In Seattle alone, OFO, LimeBike, and Spin are all competing. 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).
- eckmLJE 9y agoWashington, DC is a big bike commuting city. Jump bikes are everywhere here.
- s5fs 9y agoRegarding Seattle and Portland, while it's true there are bike share programs, I don't see them used very often. The few who are using the bikes are either tourists (minority) or the homeless on stolen bikes. Additionally, just about half the limebikes that I see are abandoned under bridges or broken and unusable. 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.
- prolikewhoa 9y agoI rode up Capitol Hill at 4:30PM every day last spring/summer, took me 10-15 minutes to get home from 2nd & Seneca and never had any safety issues. Drivers in Seattle are fairly aware of their surroundings with everyone walking randomly at all times and the city is adding new bike lanes often. Going up the hill on a Lime, Spin, or Ofo...no way -- you see those at the bottom of every hill.
- codereflection 9y agoI'm in Seattle as well, I have to disagree. Drivers here are mostly clueless. I know many who bike or ride motorcycles, and they have many stories to tell about the cluelessness of Seattle drivers. It's a dangerous city to ride a bike.
- prolikewhoa 9y agoI would argue it's fairly safe, especially comparing to rural areas. I now live south a few miles outside of the normal Seattle walking/biking and I've already experienced a few near-death situations, but didn't have any problems in my two years downtown. This is just a personal anecdote, but I still do feel people driving Seattle downtown & on the hill are fairly aware of bikers and people walking at any time they want.
- lev99 9y agoEvery biker in every North American city has stories about clueless drivers and close encounters, if not full impacts. Seattle is probably in the top 5 cities for driver awareness, but it has room for improvement.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoIf you live on the Burke Gilman trail, biking in Seattle can be pretty good. And they even have a bike lane over 520 now for those hardcore Microsoft bike commuters.
- phil21 9y agoMinneapolis? As someone who commuted via bike "before it was cool" in Minneapolis I want to ask what you're smoking :) 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.
- r27d 9y agoNot sure who you are but I bet we were friends. Left MPLS for SF. MPLS is "the best city" for nearly anything if you ask a local. Too bad they wasted the Non-Motorized Transportation Pilot $20M on shitty latex paint bike lanes at $75,000 per block.
- ghostly_s 9y agoWhat do you think they should have spent that on?
- r27d 9y agoThey treated it like a slush-fund with no accountability. All of the projects were late and gave a feeling of "a little paint cost how much?" Now they're spending more money to make better bike lanes they could have built in the first place. That's a MPLS thing though. They're always trying to reinvent the wheel instead of using the good infrastructure that's been tried other places.
- ams6110 9y agoI don't understand biking in Chicago or Minneapolis. What do you do when it rains, or snows, which is like 2/3 of the year? And after that it's 95 degrees and 98% humidity. There are probably no more than 30 to 45 days a year where it's really decent biking weather.
- lev99 9y agoFor most trips in Seattle more than half a mile and less than 5 miles in distance biking is the fastest way to travel. It stays competitive for east-west travel and places without mandatory parking minimums for longer distances.
- bnjms 9y agoThere are a lot of cities with older areas which have gentrified into concert/eating/drinking-hang-out hubs. These areas weren't planned so they may be too spread out for foot traffic and adding bikes may increase travel in the area. People aren't about to bring their own bikes but if they're already there why not use them. And if the bike sharing startups prove to cities that people are willing to ride bikes cities, especially those with universities, may begin planning to have dedicated bike lanes. As drivers learn to look for bicyclists it will become safer and easier politically to plan for bicyclists. I'm all for it.
- clairity 9y agolos angeles is perfect for bike transport. it's sunny and doesn't get too hot or too cold most of the year (in the LA basin proper, the san fernando and inland valleys are a different story). the city government is pro bike path and installing more bike lanes every day. biking is faster during the 6 hours of rush hour a day. most amenities are within 2-3 miles (~15 minutes) of where you live. you can take your bike on buses and trains for the daily commute. 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).
- alangibson 9y agoI think this is the first time I've ever heard someone make an argument for LA as a bikable city. Very interesting indeed.
- bogomipz 9y ago>"los angeles is perfect for bike transport." Except that LA is a sprawl and almost nothing is close together. Maybe if you live at the beach its nice.
- k_sh 9y agoTrue, but generally folks live within 5 miles of 90% of the places they go. 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.
- ghostly_s 9y ago> True, but generally folks live within 5 miles of 90% of the places they go. Isn't LA like, the single place on earth where this is least true?
- prolikewhoa 9y agoSeattle seems like it's doing well with Ofo, Limebike, and Spin however it will never be a replacement for a car, and they're 40-70lb bikes that can't make it up Seattle's hills which makes them kind of useless outside of downtown. They are used often and I see people riding them all day down by the waterfront, especially in the late spring/summer. 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.
- adjohn 9y agoLimebike now has electric assist bikes[1] scattered throughout Seattle which makes climbing those hills a breeze. [1] - http://www.limebike.com/electric-assist-bike http://www.limebike.com/electric-assist-bike
- prolikewhoa 9y agoI haven't tried the Lime e-bikes yet, but I'm definitely interested because I see them all around my workplace now. Have you tried and confirmed you can make it up the hill with little to no issues?
- lev99 9y agoI've watched people go up the hills on e-bikes. It looks easy enough.
- mulmen 9y agoAre any of them actually making money? We had Pronto too but it was hopeless as a business.
- patorjk 9y agoI'll throw Baltimore's name out there. They even have a Bike Share program (https://www.bmorebikeshare.com/ https://www.bmorebikeshare.com/), which is, interestingly enough, sponsored by Lyft.
- andechs 9y agoI live in Toronto - a bike is ALWAYS the fastest way to get anywhere in the city under about 5km (although it's pretty close). Traffic is pretty bad at core times and the hassle of parking adds quite a bit of time at each end.
- joncrane 9y agoCity bikes are huge in Washington, DC. I think there are now four brands of bike shares in the city. It's also a great fit because traffic SUUUUCKS and there are a lot of healthy people who buy into the concept.
- unexpected 9y agoThis seems to be a little bit of coastal elitism. Do you know what the largest market is right now for Bike Share? It's....Dallas! We have over 20,000 bikes in the city now. http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-bike-share-regulations-to-wait-until-the-fall-10414712 http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-bike-share-regulat...
- hunter23 9y agoYes, but is the US the area where the product will have the most revolutionary impact? In my view, I would target high density cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Delhi, Paris, etc. Europe and Asia seem like the most important markets for the technology rather than the US which is littered with sprawled out cities.
- keerthiko 9y agoThe US is the least penetrated market when it comes to bikes. Uber changed the way people interact with taxis/cabs enough to make a cultural impact in many parts of the world, and it has the clout to do the same with bikes. I think it's a good diversification on their part, kind of insuring against the future where driverless cars won't necessarily become the de facto universal means of transit worldwide as the rest of America/SV seems to envision.
- JohnnyConatus 9y agoAlso winter. Most of the dense cities in the U.S. also have significant winter weather that makes biking less ideal.
- maherbeg 9y agoThat's a problem being solved already in Scandinavian countries. It just takes education and continually improving infrastructure. The more bikers that are on the road, the safer everyone feels riding a bike, which means more bikers on the road :)
- umeshunni 9y agoOut of curiosity, how is this being solved in Scandinavian countries?
- toomuchtodo 9y agohttps://www.wired.com/2015/06/copenhagenize-worlds-most-bike-friendly-cities/ https://www.wired.com/2015/06/copenhagenize-worlds-most-bike...
- maherbeg 9y agoAs an additional data point: https://www.statista.com/statistics/397765/electric-bicycle-sales-in-the-european-union-eu/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/397765/electric-bicycle-... 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!)
- godzillabrennus 9y agoLiving in SF these days and up until a week ago I thought the same way. I serendipitously had an opportunity to try a Bird electric scooter. I was heading to a meeting a few blocks away and one happened to be parked outside of the building I was leaving. It was far enough that I would have normally used Uber to get there but not far enough that I couldn't have walked if I didn't have to rush over. Long story short, I grabbed the App, started the scooter, and really enjoyed the ride over. It cost a fraction of the Uber ride and got me there faster. 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.
- fstuff 9y agoYea I've never seen anyone riding with a helmet on these scooters. U see them all over south park bear the ball park. 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.
- bogomipz 9y ago>"I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities." Outside of Europe what would you consider the major non car-centric cities?
- maherbeg 9y agoNew york city, the chicago core (probably not greater chicagoland), SF, LA, Portland, Seattle proper would all be excellent candidates. 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
- bogomipz 9y agoYour listing LA as a non car-centric city? You must be joking. LA is the absolute antithesis of a non-car centric city. Maybe you missed this? http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-traffic-los-angeles-20170220-story.html 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. http://inrix.com/scorecard/ http://inrix.com/scorecard/
- ams6110 9y agoSounds like what people said about Segway. Don't remember if it was Jobs, but somebody of approximately his tech reputation said "this will change the way we build cities."
- mattmanser 9y agoYes, the trouble is, the cities are already built. Basing your business model on cities spending a metric tonne of $$$ on reworking their city isn't going to work.
- astrodust 9y agoEuropean cities were built before the car. 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.
- wpietri 9y agoI've been cycling in SF for more than a decade and am a SF Bike Coalition member, so I doubt I'm underestimating it all that much. 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.
- maherbeg 9y agoTotally fair! They're taking off in Europe right now which will help set the tone for how cities can accommodate these bikes. I think incidents like shutting down the L line in New York will help propel e-bikes/scooters forward much faster than anticipated. 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!)
- tejasmanohar 9y agoAlso a cyclist, and I think one of the reasons share bikes haven't taken off as much in SF is the terrain. Bikes are a convenient way to get from place to place, but who wants to get sweaty and scared riding around SF hills?
- nlh 9y agoAnd that’s precisely why Jump bikes are awesome in a city like SF. The electric assist is just enough of a boost that you feel the hills but not so much that you’re breaking out in a sweat going over them.
- tejasmanohar 8y agoAh, my bad. Sounds perfect.
- 9y ago
- f4rker 9y agoAnyone half serious about riding doesn't ride a rental
- gaius 9y agoI think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They'll likely reshape cities significantly That is literally what people said about Segways.
- fergie 9y agoIt could be a way for Uber to generate goodwill, particularly in Europe where they have been effectively banned from several cities.
- whazor 9y agoTo support your point, e-bikes are fast. They go like 25km/h, and they often beat cars in speed as they do not get stuck in traffic.
- emmelaich 9y agoYep, instead of Lyft/Uber I've been using Ford GoBike or Jump bike. Bit of exercise and gets you there faster and cheaper.