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Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

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Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#141

Post by keerthiko »

alangibson wrote: post #134
arstin wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an avid biker, and I also make heavy use of my city's shared bike program. I go more miles on my own bikes, but I ride shared bikes more often. I think you're overlooking many significant use cases for shared bikes. Here's a few: - It's well below freezing out and you just want to quickly get from your apartment to the train station, drop the bike off and forget about it. - You won't be returning to that station…

Fair enough, but the difference between a biker and non-biker is not access to a bike. The difference is that one thinks it's too physically difficult and/or dangerous and the other doesn't. Thats a problem of environment, not access.

I used to live in a town that was much more bikeable, and easier to own a bike in (more space in my house to store it). I was a super-regular bike commuter, but now I just want it sometimes when something is over 2 miles away but less than 10. I think this is pretty common for a lot of people living in cities, and bike shares are a godsend.

Another thing not mentioned is how nice it is for people who are from out of town, either as tourists or nomads or in for work. I lived/worked in Taipei for a month, and bike share is part of the government transit program, first 30 minutes free, and you can access it with your subway transit card. This singlehandedly made me love the city.

I had actually forgotten I still own a personal bike until writing this reply.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#142

Post by bobthepanda »

alangibson wrote: post #134
arstin wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an avid biker, and I also make heavy use of my city's shared bike program. I go more miles on my own bikes, but I ride shared bikes more often. I think you're overlooking many significant use cases for shared bikes. Here's a few: - It's well below freezing out and you just want to quickly get from your apartment to the train station, drop the bike off and forget about it. - You won't be returning to that station…

Fair enough, but the difference between a biker and non-biker is not access to a bike. The difference is that one thinks it's too physically difficult and/or dangerous and the other doesn't. Thats a problem of environment, not access.

Well part of a problem with biking is that you need a place to secure a bicycle. Many places in America do not have this; not everyone is carrying a lock and often there's nothing to lock to. No one wants to ride a mode of transportation that is impossible to secure and is going to get stolen by the time they need to make the return trip. Bike share is good in that it removes that particular obstacle.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#143

Post by andrewem »

e40 wrote: post #107
alangibson wrote: post #82

I'm currently sitting in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. One of the first things you notice when you get here is that there are not bike lanes, not bike paths but very seriously bike roads on either side of the street. These are filled pretty much all the time by people of all ages on their personal bikes. There are no rental bikes anywhere. The moral of this story is that if you want people to bike, build bikeable citi…

Exactly. And as a pedestrian, I expect to be having arguments with the people renting these bikes (I already have had a few, and they're still new in my city). They seem to think they can ride on the sidewalk, even though the street I've had the argument has a separate bike lane.

Is the bike lane physically protected from the car lanes? If not, it's quite dangerous to ride in it, no matter what the law says.

Edit: I should add, please don't buy into the idea that people walking and bicycling should fight over the scraps of space left over after nearly everything is given to cars.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#144

Post by bfuller »

neves wrote: post #22
wpietri wrote: post #7

This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later? I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodg…

It looks like a marketing play. There are studies proving that Uber is increasing traffic and pollution (not even talking about workspace issues and drivers explotation). Bikes are eco-friendly and everybody like them.

>everybody like them.

not entirely true concerning the bike share companies. when they are fighting for dominance like they are in Dallas, the city gets littered with the bikes and people start vandalizing them. This happened in Paris so much that the dockless bikeshares pulled out.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#145

Post by BoorishBears »

ebikelaw wrote: post #139
BoorishBears wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car crashing into a building is a news story. A misplaced share bike is daily life in cities with lots of shares. I’m not particularly against them, but they can turn into more of a nuisance than a benefit quickly.

The American sidewalk on which I stand as I write this comment is almost impassable from all the cars parked on it. The idea that “dockless” bikes are an even slight intrusion upon the American streetscape is just so stupid that I can barely bring myself to argue over it.

That’s a bit rude.

I don’t get what your point is anyways. Cars are an eyesore so what’s one more eyesore?

Not to mention the problem is vandalized and misplaced bikes, not bikes. I don’t mind bikes getting used taking space.

How many cars do you see up on cinder blocks blocking the road? That’s the equivalent of a vandalized share bike strewn across a sidewalk.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#146

Post by godzillabrennus »

maherbeg wrote: post #138
maherbeg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As an additional data point: 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!)

Living 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.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#147

Post by jgalt212 »

wpietri wrote: post #7

This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later? I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodg…

The extremely cynical view is that Dara is trying to curry favor with Menlo Ventures (backer of both Jump and Uber).

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#148

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

arstin wrote: post #122
alangibson wrote: post #82

I'm currently sitting in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. One of the first things you notice when you get here is that there are not bike lanes, not bike paths but very seriously bike roads on either side of the street. These are filled pretty much all the time by people of all ages on their personal bikes. There are no rental bikes anywhere. The moral of this story is that if you want people to bike, build bikeable citi…

I'm an avid biker, and I also make heavy use of my city's shared bike program. I go more miles on my own bikes, but I ride shared bikes more often. I think you're overlooking many significant use cases for shared bikes. Here's a few: - It's well below freezing out and you just want to quickly get from your apartment to the train station, drop the bike off and forget about it. - You won't be returning to that station…

I’m in Sydney. Those are pretty minor use cases compared to the sheer nuisance of dockless bikes.

No helmets, no seats, bent wheels. Left in the middle of side walks. Left on other people’s property. In trees.

The people who typically use them are casual bikers too, so they use the side walk instead of the roads.

No idea about the below freezing stuff.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#149

Post by BoorishBears »

ebikelaw wrote: post #140
BoorishBears wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have no idea why people complain about bike shares, dockless or docked. You like the bike shares you’ve used, or you don’t know why people complain? Because if it’s the latter, the main reason is they can easily become a nuisance: https://www.twitter.com/hashtag/DocklessBikeFail People abuse them, and when/if the programs fail you end up with stories like this: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/25/china…

I don’t know what you’re trying to show me with that first link. It’s two scooters parked in a street parking spot that would normally be occupied by only one car. To me that’s a huge victory for urban America over the automobile.

That’s a link to hundreds of images... that being said, which parking spot? The pictures I see are knocked over bikes thrown about like a child's poorly kept toys.

Contrary to what you may believe, you’re not allowed to leave a car wherever you feel like it at a given moment.

You can’t even leave your own person sprawled out on whatever public surface pleases you.

No idea how this is a “huge victory”

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#150

Post by adjohn »

prolikewhoa wrote: post #80
fataliss wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 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 l…

Seattle 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 fo…

Limebike now has electric assist bikes[1] scattered throughout Seattle which makes climbing those hills a breeze.

[1] - http://www.limebike.com/electric-assist-bike

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