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If they can offer these without the inconvenient docking stations it’ll be a much more popular transportation option.

jaredsohn 8y ago
The docking stations are convenient in some ways because you know where to go to find a bike and you can feel good that you're not leaving it in a place that is in the way.
- lhorie 8y ago
  The one major annoyance I've found with them is that coverage is extremely restricted. In SF, coverage doesn't reach Fishermans Wharf, Golden Gate bridge or Golden Gate park. 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.
  - jaredsohn 8y ago
    >in SF for tourism a few years ago, it was a complete non-starter That's intentional - http://www.sfexaminer.com/transportation-officials-halt-funding-ford-gobike-expansion-citing-rental-bike-conflict/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/transportation-officials-halt-fund...
    - lhorie 8y ago
      FWIW, it was also extremely restricted when I used it in Toronto. Coverage only went as far as middle of Korean Town, meaning you couldn't use it to go to, say, High Park. For commuting it was an even sillier proposition, because the coverage overlapped with the densest subway/bus grid in the city, and it was not much cheaper per month than a subway pass, unless you got a groupon for it.
      - jaredsohn 8y ago
        It would be nice if there was more coverage but they have been expanding in the Bay Area over the past year. 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.)
- entee 8y ago
  If the stations were upgraded a bit, I bet the docking stations could charge the E-bikes. That would make it especially useful to have docks, far less labor involved in manually charging bikes, the rider sets it to charge automatically!
- donarb 8y ago
  All the bikes in Seattle (Lime, Ofo and Spin) are dockless and GPS tracked so you can find a bike anytime using their app.
  - jaredsohn 8y ago
    But that means you have to check your app; hopefully your phone isn't dead. Also, some days you might need to travel farther to find a bike. 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.
- Reedx 8y ago
  > and you can feel good that you're not leaving it in a place that is in the way. 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.
aventrix 8y ago
There is a quiet war brewing between city councils and dockless bike companies. It's tough to say whether cities will embrace a dockless bike/scooter future, or if they will ultimately ban the companies from operation, leaving a market for docked bikes to remain.
- tunap 8y ago
  Quiet, perhaps, but visually egregious. Lime bikes are seen daily abandoned and often lying on sidewalks, on grass, in fields & even on street curbs.
  - ndespres 8y ago
    In my city, cars are parked everywhere, on the sides of every road, on sidewalks sometimes, now THAT is egregious!
    - 8ytecoder 8y ago
      A car parked on the street doesn't inconvenience me but a bike/scooter on the sidewalk does - every single day. I'm a cyclist myself. I do like the convenience of dockless bikes for drop offs.
      - stellar678 8y ago
        Cars parked on the street are a huge inconvenience. They've just managed to formalize that inconvenience, and we forget about the fact that cars stole 85% of the street while people using their own feet are stuck sharing the other 15% with trash cans, telephone poles, and basically anything else in our public sphere.
      - s0rce 8y ago
        Parked cars are always in the way, the ones double parked blocking the official bike lane are hugely disruptive and dangerous and the nearly permanently parked cars along the side block what could be actually effective biking and pedestrian infrastructure. Just because cars are parked on the "street" and this is the status quo doesn't mean its no longer an inconvenience.
amyjess 8y ago
In Dallas, dockless bikes are nothing but problematic. 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.
- panopticon 8y ago
  Same thing with the electric scooters in SF. I've even seen many vandalized scooters--including one that someone had lovingly taken a dump on.
- adrianmonk 8y ago
  It seems like there's a lot of potential for self-policing in that regard. Just a few random ideas: 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.
Tiktaalik 8y ago
I don't agree. 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.
- entee 8y ago
  You can already use a clipper card to unlock a gobike in SF. It's how I do it all the time, and it's incredibly convenient. If only they had a station essentially every block or every other block; the one by my house is frequently empty.
- majormajor 8y ago
  "Point to point" is a huge part of the appeal of cars over the existing public transportation network. We dedicate a ton of space to enabling point to point for cars, and barely any for bike docks and the like. 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.
  - karthikb 8y ago
    And yet in a congested city, the closest car parking may be 2-3 blocks. Not a huge advantage over bike docks.
    - majormajor 8y ago
      Two to three blocks is much less than the amount of walking I would have to do as part of a typical within-3-mile local trip using either local bike-sharing bikes or public transportation. That would be 6-10+ blocks of walking, and a transfer or two (in the case of bus or rail). So I'll drive or lyft, because that's a pretty big convenience/flexibility advantage, especially if I'm making multiple stops. But Birds are increasingly tempting because I usually see one within one to two blocks of my apartment.

The docking stations are convenient in some ways because you know where to go to find a bike and you can feel good that you're not leaving it in a place that is in the way.

lhorie 8y ago
The one major annoyance I've found with them is that coverage is extremely restricted. In SF, coverage doesn't reach Fishermans Wharf, Golden Gate bridge or Golden Gate park. 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.
- jaredsohn 8y ago
  >in SF for tourism a few years ago, it was a complete non-starter That's intentional - http://www.sfexaminer.com/transportation-officials-halt-funding-ford-gobike-expansion-citing-rental-bike-conflict/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/transportation-officials-halt-fund...
  - lhorie 8y ago
    FWIW, it was also extremely restricted when I used it in Toronto. Coverage only went as far as middle of Korean Town, meaning you couldn't use it to go to, say, High Park. For commuting it was an even sillier proposition, because the coverage overlapped with the densest subway/bus grid in the city, and it was not much cheaper per month than a subway pass, unless you got a groupon for it.
    - jaredsohn 8y ago
      It would be nice if there was more coverage but they have been expanding in the Bay Area over the past year. 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.)
entee 8y ago
If the stations were upgraded a bit, I bet the docking stations could charge the E-bikes. That would make it especially useful to have docks, far less labor involved in manually charging bikes, the rider sets it to charge automatically!
donarb 8y ago
All the bikes in Seattle (Lime, Ofo and Spin) are dockless and GPS tracked so you can find a bike anytime using their app.
- jaredsohn 8y ago
  But that means you have to check your app; hopefully your phone isn't dead. Also, some days you might need to travel farther to find a bike. 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.
Reedx 8y ago
> and you can feel good that you're not leaving it in a place that is in the way. 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.

aventrix 8y ago

There is a quiet war brewing between city councils and dockless bike companies. It's tough to say whether cities will embrace a dockless bike/scooter future, or if they will ultimately ban the companies from operation, leaving a market for docked bikes to remain.

tunap 8y ago
Quiet, perhaps, but visually egregious. Lime bikes are seen daily abandoned and often lying on sidewalks, on grass, in fields & even on street curbs.
- ndespres 8y ago
  In my city, cars are parked everywhere, on the sides of every road, on sidewalks sometimes, now THAT is egregious!
  - 8ytecoder 8y ago
    A car parked on the street doesn't inconvenience me but a bike/scooter on the sidewalk does - every single day. I'm a cyclist myself. I do like the convenience of dockless bikes for drop offs.
    - stellar678 8y ago
      Cars parked on the street are a huge inconvenience. They've just managed to formalize that inconvenience, and we forget about the fact that cars stole 85% of the street while people using their own feet are stuck sharing the other 15% with trash cans, telephone poles, and basically anything else in our public sphere.
    - s0rce 8y ago
      Parked cars are always in the way, the ones double parked blocking the official bike lane are hugely disruptive and dangerous and the nearly permanently parked cars along the side block what could be actually effective biking and pedestrian infrastructure. Just because cars are parked on the "street" and this is the status quo doesn't mean its no longer an inconvenience.

amyjess 8y ago

In Dallas, dockless bikes are nothing but problematic. 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.

panopticon 8y ago
Same thing with the electric scooters in SF. I've even seen many vandalized scooters--including one that someone had lovingly taken a dump on.
adrianmonk 8y ago
It seems like there's a lot of potential for self-policing in that regard. Just a few random ideas: 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.

Tiktaalik 8y ago

I don't agree. 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.

entee 8y ago
You can already use a clipper card to unlock a gobike in SF. It's how I do it all the time, and it's incredibly convenient. If only they had a station essentially every block or every other block; the one by my house is frequently empty.
majormajor 8y ago
"Point to point" is a huge part of the appeal of cars over the existing public transportation network. We dedicate a ton of space to enabling point to point for cars, and barely any for bike docks and the like. 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.
- karthikb 8y ago
  And yet in a congested city, the closest car parking may be 2-3 blocks. Not a huge advantage over bike docks.
  - majormajor 8y ago
    Two to three blocks is much less than the amount of walking I would have to do as part of a typical within-3-mile local trip using either local bike-sharing bikes or public transportation. That would be 6-10+ blocks of walking, and a transfer or two (in the case of bus or rail). So I'll drive or lyft, because that's a pretty big convenience/flexibility advantage, especially if I'm making multiple stops. But Birds are increasingly tempting because I usually see one within one to two blocks of my apartment.