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As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

nytimes.com

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Re: As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

#91

Post by Markoff »

chairmanwow wrote: post #39

I am currently living in Shanghai and I use Mobike, Ofo, or 赶赶单车 to get to work everyday. I have logged over 250km between the services. This article is largely unfair. The city has large swaths of sidewalk established as bike parking zones. I can almost always find a bike zone within 10-50m. Furthermore, there are almost always parking attendants and security guards outside of malls and subway stations ensuring that…

Shanghai ain't China, heck I've been Beijinger for many years and even I was shocked when i went there for business trip to see people waiting for green light at junction.

Re: As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

#92

Post by exDM69 »

adrianN wrote: post #90
exDM69 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40 km/h average is crazy! I can get slightly above 20 km/h sustained average for about an hour. There's no way I could double that, and I'm pretty fit. My 20 km/h includes a few stops and normal traffic so it's probably closer to 30 on a flat straight with no traffic. Perhaps a special bike with narrow tires could help, but that's less versatile (and I need to ride on dirt roads too). The highest I've measured is 54…

Of course 40km/h does not include traffic, hills, or wind. It is also pretty crucial to have a bike with a racing geometry so that your head is low and air resistance is reduced.

40 km/h is not impossible by any means but as a sustained average speed it takes a special bike and a person with pretty mighty athletic background. Definitely not something for the average commuter. Even 20 km/h sustained for an hour is more than most people can do.

I could probably do 40 km/h for 15-30 minutes if I went all-in and had a racing bike. But my commute includes dirt roads and pathways through the forest so a racing bike is out of question and I don't want to take a shower every day arriving to work.

I don't really have to share the road with cars at any point on my commute so driving too slow isn't an issue. A part of the way is shared with pedestrians (and slower bicyclists) so going too fast is more of a problem.

Re: As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

#93

Post by Markoff »

kisstheblade wrote: post #66

Recently visited china and noticed that the people there behave really filthy. They eat their lunches on the go when walking in the city, and when they are done they just dump the styrofoam containers and leftovers right there in the street. Then city workers collect them in huge stinky mounds waiting to be ferried of somewhere. Apparently city living is such a new concept there that a sence of community hasn't evolv…

why wouldn't they throw it away if they know someone will clean it in few hours? or you have street sweepers unemployed?

it's same with fast food, only ducks who wanna make fast food workers unemployed take their tray and trash from table in fast food chain knowing there is designated person collecting these trays and cleaning tables

Re: As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

#94

Post by Markoff »

wybiral wrote: post #7
kstenerud wrote: post #2

"China has been pushing for years to develop technology products that catch fire overseas." I almost pissed myself laughing at this line.

Shucks. Samsung beat them to it...

wasn't the battery supplier from China?

Re: As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

#95

Post by lozenge »

rhaps0dy wrote: post #83

How about docked bike sharing? Barcelona has been having one for some time, it doesn't have many of the problems here, even though our suzhi is not very high. It does have the problem that you have to start and finish in a dock, but that seems minor.

The investment required is huge. On top of the costs for the bikes ($80 each) there's another $1000+ to install the docks. Not to mention the huge Chinese bureaucracy to navigate if you wanted to install docks in public spaces.

https://www.itdp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ITDP_Bike_Sh... (page 109)

Re: As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

#96

Post by lozenge »

beguiledfoil wrote: post #6
brad0 wrote: post #5

Aren't all of these bike sharing startups a symptom of a bigger cause? Afaik there's a huge property bubble in China, particularly in Beijing. A lot of people have become billionaires quickly and they're looking to invest that money into something else. But the bike sharing startups are a bubble within themselves. I wonder when it's all going to pop.

What's unsustainable about cheap bikes?

At $0.07/hour, with a bike cost of $80, the bike needs to be taken on 1,200 hour-long trips to recoup its investment. That's possible, but not in a city with 1 hire bike for every 16 people.

And this isn't even considering the bike repair, lost/vandalised/taken apart bikes, trucks needed to move the bikes when people's trips don't balance the bikes out (e.g. people riding public transport uphill and bikes downhill).

Even most publicly funded bike shares don't make a profit. They bring benefits to their city in reduced pollution and traffic, and increased health and enjoyment. None of which will show up on a start-up's balance sheet.

Re: As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

#97

Post by contingencies »

Here in Shenzhen where it is stinking hot all the damn time (we don't get freezing, snowy/sleeted, dust storms or 'normal') and windy/wet some of the time, there's government e-bike stations all about my area. Unfortunately I can't use them because they don't take foreign passport numbers. Otherwise, I would.

Re: As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

#98

Post by cylinder »

dredmorbius wrote: post #67
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could even offer negative pricing for bikes that are out of place.

Haul-back bonuses have been used in other domains for decades. Moving vans. Railway cars

Airport luggage carts

Re: As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

#99

Post by Pxtl »

forapurpose wrote: post #55
Pxtl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a system here in Hamilton Ontario where the bikes require a credit card to access and they include a cellphone/GPS system built into the bike so every bike knows its current location. That seems to reduce the abuse.

> bikes require a credit card to access Many people don't have credit cards (though my information on that is years old; perhaps it's changed?). Doesn't that policy limit access for the people who might need the bikes most?

Ontario has heavy credit card coverage as I understand it, and the city runs a charity that handles giving access to the bikeshare system for those who need help. The idea is that the charity will also absorb the liability of providing access to people are less traceable than credit card holders.

Re: As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong with Us?

#100

Post by jaclaz »

Just in case, previous NYT article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/world/asia/beijing-bike-s...

On other news, this summer, August, Mobike started being deployed in Florence and Milan, Italy:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-07/26/content_302...

it is too early/too few bikes are in service yet, next test will be London:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/indyventure/mobik...

but I bet we'll soon see if Europeans will be more polite than the Chinese ...

Manchester, UK, seems like having the same issues:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/16/manche...

In any case the Chinese problems must be large enough to have the Government intervene:

https://phys.org/news/2017-08-china-issues-bike-sharing-guid...

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