I agree on your first point, why would Lyft/Uber not want you to get in a car? If they only charge $3 for a whole day of a bike rental, instead of $20-40 per car ride (lets say at least 2-4 rides for people visiting a town or going out for a night) who is going to fight for the $3 or for that matter the $150 for a year? Point taken, as far as two vendors with a common membership fee. That is a little different approach, why not have more then one vendor and let the customer decide who they want to support via their wallet, as it will come out similarly to your point at the end. If you look at where motivate operates they have contracts with the cities up to a certain year. This is the not way things are done in D.C. and San Francisco, they have 3-5 bike shares each that are all working really extremely hard to get customers. Granted in the end there may only be 2-4 that will survive the biggest ones I can think of are motivate, Jump, Ofo, and B-cycle. My thinking on this is; have a contract for 1-2 docked bike system (as those take up the most space, as mentioned before) and give them a 5 year contract. The ones that follow that contract most closely in terms of bike availability, safety, functioning docks, etc.. Then bring in 2-4 dockless systems with a similar contract to the docked bikes, and do not follow the way that China did it. Look up mountain of bikes on google and you can see what I am talking about. I know that there are sections of NYC that are bringing in dockless bikes, and hopefully they do a great job because competition breeds innovation.

Here in the US there has to be more structure to where these bikes are able to be operated. Will that happen hopefully but only time will tell.

And ride shares are probably the biggest cause of congestion currently in the city with something like 17 million rides a month by the end of 2017. I'm not sure how that translates to actual vehicles on the road but I'm sure it's a lot just by the number of cars with TLC plates I see cruising empty or double parked in my own neighborhood midday

re: Lyft's notional purchase of Motivate (Citibike):

Privately-owned dockless (app-based) bike share companies aren't in the business of providing bicycles. They're in the business of harvesting, monetizing, and selling personally-identifiable user data -- from app-compatible smartphones or credit/debit cards. The bicycles are incidental. That's one reason the bikes are poor quality and poorly maintained.

Where street space is limited and every square inch is contested (e.g.: NYC), what's NOT needed is dockless (app-based) bike share bikes randomly scattered hither and yon. Companies offering dockless bikeshare bikes should be required to add new bike racks in the street replacing current car parking. Bike racks shouldn't hog limited pedestrian space on sidewalks. Worst case: if a dockless bikeshare operator fails, the city has gained bike parking.

Besides harvesting your data and monetizing it which ever way they can, they would only want to exist in the cloud, with no physical assets to maintain. Thus their likely model going forward would be to have private bike owners share out their bike to the public for a share of the revenue riders pay. They take none of the risk and reap all the rewards.

Yesterday walking home I noticed a new private bike share kiosk and docks behind 21 West End Ave. Operated by Zagster.
21 West End - Zagster Bike Share
The locations I see on their map seem to be operated by schools or private apartment complexes like the one I passed by

I've seen that one, too. No visible growth in a while.

Since the website requires an invite code to register I think those bikes might be available to residents only.

Zagster? What a weird name. ;)

"Membership in the bike share program is available to all residents of 21 West End."

Interesting. This is the first I've heard of private bike share separate from Citi Bike in NYC. There's only one station, but you can keep the bike for four hours, and lock the bike if you make stops. Could be nice for an afternoon jaunt, or errands around town. Not useful for commuting though.

Remember when buildings were freaking and suing because, OMG, bike docks on the street in front? Now they're installing their own.

Very, very easy to believe based on my anecdotal evidence as well. I see tons of TLC (or just T) platted cars all over in the city and outer boroughs. I also see a huge number of them when driving my car.

And although cabbies can be pretty bad, the ride share drivers are considerably worse and extremely dangerous. They do some of the most ridiculous things, and often with police in the vicinity. I've lost count of how many times I'm yelling "and you are just going to let him do that right in front of you?" at the cops.

And they list proximity to Citi Bike as a selling point!

Uber (etc) drivers are very bad. Yellow taxi drivers have gotten better, in my observation.

Bumping my 7 May 2018 post because -- random luck -- earlier today, I encountered another Citibike-with-a-basket; pic attached.

Apparently, these remain extremely rare. In my previous post, I'd quoted Brother Theodore's "rare as rocking-horse droppings" remark. Strangely, both basket sightings have been on the West 13th St block with the small theater where he performed. Go figure.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...927b94dd0c.jpg

Looks a little better, still you have to wonder if these are intentionally discouraging designs, like the anti-sleeping under-arm-rests on park benches. To keep passers by from using them as trash receptacles?

Just put an advertising-laden milk crate up there already.

My wife got a bike with "that wheelie thing" and made the gesture of twisting the ratio adjuster on the NuVinci hub. :lol:

Lime bikes have really colonized the SCT now, saw maybe 8-10 parked along it fairly neatly. As long as it stays that way, seems like a win, though the only ones I saw being ridden were two younger guys indecisively paused just north of Van Cortlandt park.

Also saw my first Ofo, similarly parked along the trail somewhere between Elmsford and Tarrytown - have they expanded beyond White Plains or was that a curious one venturing a bit outside its home range?

Citibike
 

[MENTION=485068]Jenniferg82[/MENTION], the bike share bikes are definitely not pleasant. But they are the right bike for the job. They have to be durable, and they have to be moderately comfortable for people of various sizes and abilities. I never get truly comfortable on them. If I have to ride more than about four miles, it gets pretty bad. But I'm glad to have them.

When we are in the city, my wife rides Citi Bike more than her own bike. Earlier this week, she rode about six miles just for fun on her own bike. She said it was so much fun, because her bike is light and nimble.

I own eight single bikes, and my wife owns three, and together we have a tandem. We are also members of Citi Bike. Citi Bike is great for some trips, especially when we want to ride one way and make the reverse trip some other way.

Stumbled on this comparison of 6 DC share pilots while looking for comparative weight of the Citibikes vs other share bikes.

Seems they're all pretty heavy, though it's at the upper end of what seems to be a 35-50 lb range (vs. 70 lbs for a pedal assist)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/expre...=.0c7df273a64c

The really interesting data might be the service life... but that would be hard to get, especially as few locations are going to offer more than one brand long enough to really test that, and wear/abuse conditions probably are different in different cities.

Pretty darn heavy
 

There has been a new company running Citi Bike in New York, and they have a good system for keeping up with repairs. The whole system is better than it was when you had the problems. And the new model bikes are better, too. The geometry is different in a subtle way I can't describe, but it allows a little for more vigorous riding. They replaced the Shimano 3-speed hub with the Sturmey Archer 3-speed hub, and they replaced the crappy Shimano hub brakes with Sturmey Archer hub brakes. The latter brakes are hugely better. Now the newest models have NuVinci rear hubs which have continuously variable ratios, even better than 3-speeds. I enjoy that hub, as I'm constantly adjusting the ratio while keeping my pedaling cadence constant.

I'm glad the Philly program works well. I get what you're saying about how the bikes suck but riding them is a great thing. I love to see the variety of people on them. I see some Wall Street types, all dressed up, and some of them pedal really hard.

Lyft Buys Motivate
 

https://blog.lyft.com/posts/lyft-to-...keshare-leader

Yep, this has been rumored, but it's actually been consummated.

Well, OK. I don't have to like the idea, but now that it's a done deal, I can hope it works out well. In fact, if Citi Bike ends up being branded Lyft instead, that will already be an improvement. The branding on the bikes gives the impression that Citibank offers ongoing sponsorship, but it doesn't. It's only come in one or two lump sums with no commitment of continuation, so I think Citi Bank has gotten more than it paid for. So I hope I become a member of Lyft bikes instead of Citi Bike.

Not only that, ya think our passes will work between cities? That would be an improvement.

As a citigold customer I've gotten 2 free yearly subscriptions form them so far and I remember correctly using a citibank credit card gets you 10% off memberships and rentals.

[MENTION=65957]dendawg[/MENTION], that's fine, but I'm not switching banks now, especially not to one of the big ones. I'm moving from two big ones to a credit union.