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In some urban areas, you may have seen bikes like in the picture below of "Limebike". It can be unlocked with a smart phone app, then dropped off anywhere. The company operates it has the credit card numbers of potential users and charge the use by hours.
I am wondering what impacts these things will have.
I guess this will have certain advantages over the likes of B-cycle which have to be put into scattered docking stations. I would just have to see real world testing and where people end up leaving them, sometimes leaving too much up to users has consequences (thinking of a Car2Go parked in a no parking lane the other day). Any deployments in the US yet?
A reduction in riders of shuttle buses. However, since transit agencies claim to lose money on every rider, improved finances. Healthier urban residents. Increase in bicycle commuting for those living within 5km of work?
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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We have three such companies operating in Seattle, the others have Orange bikes and yellow bikes. Rarely do we see anyone riding them, a few tourists in the summer, but now they just litter the sidewalks and annoy pedestrians having to dodge them. No one commutes on them, it's not practical with all the hills and 9 months of rain.
A reduction in riders of shuttle buses. However, since transit agencies claim to lose money on every rider, improved finances. Healthier urban residents. Increase in bicycle commuting for those living within 5km of work?
Healthier urban residents as long as you are wearing a gas mask.
I live at the top of a big hill. The CitiBike station a block from my home always runs out of bikes. Why? People will get a bike there, coast down hill and dock it there, but they don't want to pedal back up the hill, so they'll walk or take transit. The CitiBike station at the top of the hill runs out of bikes pretty quickly, because nobody returns bikes there. CitiBike staff come out a few times a week to re-stock the station with bikes, but within a few hours, the station is empty again, and it will sit empty for a couple of days until the next restock.
I like CitiBike, including the fact that a CitiBike membership is valid in Jersey City and New York City. But in Jersey City, the stations are too far apart. I often can't find a station within a 5-10 minute walk of my destination. And state law prohibiting "commercial uses" in state parks prevents CitiBike from having stations at Liberty State Park.
Hoboken, the neighboring town to the north, has a more flexible bike share system, which allows you to lock bikes up almost anywhere in town. I see pros and cons with that. The pro, of course, is that you can ride the bike to your destination and lock it up there, instead of finding a station that could be several blocks away. The con I imagine would be if you ride a bike to the supermarket and lock it there. Then 20 minutes later when you leave the market, someone else has checked out that bike, leaving you with no ride home.
We have a bike-share in Indianapolis, though it does not operate in quite the same way as the OP described. However, it has been tremendously popular. I see people out riding them every time I am downtown independent of the weather, but obviously more popular in the warmer months. The bike-share has exceeded all original usage projections since being built.
I live at the top of a big hill. The CitiBike station a block from my home always runs out of bikes. Why? People will get a bike there, coast down hill and dock it there, but they don't want to pedal back up the hill, so they'll walk or take transit. The CitiBike station at the top of the hill runs out of bikes pretty quickly, because nobody returns bikes there. CitiBike staff come out a few times a week to re-stock the station with bikes, but within a few hours, the station is empty again, and it will sit empty for a couple of days until the next restock.
I like CitiBike, including the fact that a CitiBike membership is valid in Jersey City and New York City. But in Jersey City, the stations are too far apart. I often can't find a station within a 5-10 minute walk of my destination. And state law prohibiting "commercial uses" in state parks prevents CitiBike from having stations at Liberty State Park.
Hoboken, the neighboring town to the north, has a more flexible bike share system, which allows you to lock bikes up almost anywhere in town. I see pros and cons with that. The pro, of course, is that you can ride the bike to your destination and lock it up there, instead of finding a station that could be several blocks away. The con I imagine would be if you ride a bike to the supermarket and lock it there. Then 20 minutes later when you leave the market, someone else has checked out that bike, leaving you with no ride home.
Seems that they should have it so that you can rent it per hour so if you know that you are going to need it longer then you are just riding it, you can keep it locked up till the time is up.
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