I work in downtown St.Louis and when I first heard about this I thought it was a nice idea that will turn out poorly.

Of course they have started to look like trash just thrown about including seeing them hanging from trees. Apparently the company has lost 50% of their fleet in some cities.

I would be curious what the losses are in other parts of the world. My guess is much lower than a typical U.S. inner city.

We had yellow bikes maybe 6 years ago it was disaster they mainly stayed downtown.
They all disappeared in about a year.

We now have orange ones and they are everywhere! Just left on sidewalks all over.

Similarly failed experiment in Seattle also. Seems like about once a month, there’s a news story about misuse of them. The most recent issue seems to involve people l aging them on ferries, which triggers a man overboard search.

https://www.seattlepi.com/loca...ferries-12818398.php


But hey, what a brilliant idea! If you haven’t been to Seattle, think hills and streets like San Francisco. Nobody in their right mind wants to bike up and down that shit.

A month or two ago I began seeing yellow dockless “Spin” bicycles in my San Diego neighborhood. Nice and clean. I assume that they have GPS to determine their location, and a way to report their location to some network.

And I further guess that there are phone apps that show where the nearest free bicycles are located (with a map display).

We've got them here in Denver and the newest trend is dockless scooters. Denver has a pilot program to test the market for them. Haven't personally needed the tech but I guess for some folks it might make sense. I think your concerns are echoed here too as folks are worried they'll just become a nuisance either on the sidewalks during use and/or just being discarded.

Theft and destruction of dockless bikes a growing problem

Less than a year after dockless bike-share systems arrived in the District, the colorful bikes are being stolen and vandalized in growing numbers, with one city official saying that some companies have lost up to 50 percent of their fleets.

The companies acknowledge that some users have figured out how to cheat their systems, such as using prepaid credit cards or taking bicycles that haven’t been properly locked by paying riders, but they contend the losses are not as high as 50 percent. Some of the companies say they are taking extra measures to improve their locking and GPS tracking systems.

“They have lost a lot of their bikes,” Kimberly Lucas, the city’s bike program specialist told a group of regional transportation officials at a dockless-bike-share workshop sponsored by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments in May. She said companies have told city transportation officials that they have lost up to half of their fleets, which is significant because each company is allowed to operate a maximum of 400 bikes in the city.

“They are being left unlocked, and somebody wants it, they need it, they take it, they drop it off, and they are just not ending the trip because they maybe weren’t required to put in a credit card on file,” Lucas told the group.

District officials declined to make Lucas available for an interview. A city spokesman said he companies have reported a combined 326 bikes missing or vandalized.

[Hey, you can’t park there! Dockless bike-share bikes ending up in inappropriate places]

Theft and vandalism of the bikes, which rent for as little as $1 a ride, have been problems in other cities in the United States and around the world, where dockless operations have grown exponentially in the last year. In the District, one of the first U.S. cities to experiment with the dockless model, bikes have been found dismantled, dumped in creeks and abandoned along highways.

In Europe, the dockless firm Gobee.bike was forced to abandon operations in Paris after thousands of its bikes were stolen and destroyed. It also stopped operating in Brussels and Rome because of significant vandalism to its fleet.

In the United States, reports of vandalism have poured out on social media, and officials have denounced sightings of bikes left destroyed and at crime scenes. In Seattle, where there are as many as 7,000 dockless bikes from three vendors, city officials say they have had incidents in which people have cut the wires of the bikes, not only destroying the bikes but also posing a safety hazard for riders unaware of the bikes’ damaged condition.

In Arizona, a pile of dozens — if not hundreds — of LimeBike bikes was spotted last week at a scrapyard just northwest of Phoenix. A company spokesman said the bikes “were damaged beyond repair” and were being recycled.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.85a5238dbb3d

Color me astonished.

If it doesn't work in Belgium, it won't work here.

The only places I could see this having success would be Japan, Singapore or maybe Iceland.

Yes, people leave them anywhere. Which I guess was the point....

We also have had the ones that use the dock stations for a while. I like them but they are not left lying around.

We have them in Dallas--yellow ones and green ones. I first started seeing them about 6 months ago and wondered what the deal was. I don't think I've ever seen one in use, though.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Similarly failed experiment in Seattle also. Seems like about once a month, there’s a news story about misuse of them. The most recent issue seems to involve people l aging them on ferries, which triggers a man overboard search.
But hey, what a brilliant idea! If you haven’t been to Seattle, think hills and streets like San Francisco. Nobody in their right mind wants to bike up and down that shit.

While one of the news teams was broadcastin about the problem, a guy in the background was seen lifting up one of the bikes and tossing it into Puget Sound.

I was in Copenhagen earlier this month. Yes, two bicycle for each person. Lots of rentals that get returned and racked. However, the city is flat as a pancake. The Only hills are where they built castles. Plus there is a 180% tax on car purchases.
Oh, our guide told us not to rent the white bikes at the hotel. The Danes know that Only tourists rent then and avoid anyone on a white bike.

South Bend (because of Notre Dame) has the green ones. Same problem, people try to hoard them, or they get trashed, thrown into the East Race, left in yards. The mayor is real proud of the bikes if you ask him.

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
We have them in Dallas--yellow ones and green ones. I first started seeing them about 6 months ago and wondered what the deal was. I don't think I've ever seen one in use, though.

flashguy

They’re a really bad idea. The ones in Dallas have migrated out into some of the suburbs. We see them in Garland. Some of them have been vandalized and are missing the device over the rear wheel that’s supposed to be their way of tracking and charging for service. First time I noticed one of those a homeless guy was tooling down Northwest highway on one. Of course the good folks in Dallas have brought this to the whole county and refuse to regulate or ensure that they’re cleaned up.