More than 10 years in, and bikesharing is working, and sometimes not, and it's all very exciting.

It's been a wild year for bikesharing. Dockless wasn't even a thing people talked about a year ago and then it was everywhere and then it started to be supplanted by scooters and then it started going away, except for the dockless e-bikes which are sticking around and soon to be joined by docked e-bikes and also there is something about "lock to" bikes. It's all very exciting and like a roulette wheel no one really knows how it will end. Also like a roulette wheel, people are betting lots of money on it. 

When this report was written in 2014, bikeshare was already changing transportation, growing rapidly and adding users. 

In 2012, 22 IT-based public bikesharing systems were operating in the United States, with a total of 884,442 users and 7,549 bicycles. Four IT-based programs in Canada had a total of 197,419 users and 6,115 bicycles. Two IT-based programs in Mexico had a total of 71,611 users and 3,680 bicycles. [CaBi accounted for more than 10% of US users]

Between January and December 2013, 14 programs launched in North America, and one closed (i.e., Bike Nation Anaheim).

Those numbers, while large, now seem quaint. Dallas alone had 30,000 bikes at one point this year. And bikesharing was causing modal shifts from buses, rail and cars. 

Here in DC, the big changes are that a few of the dockless companies have left, others have been bought with those staying shifting hard to scooters, the pilot will end soon with new bikes required to be lock-to and CaBi bringing e-bikes into the mix.

I think we all knew that not all of the dockless companies were going to make it, so it's not a surprise to see some leave. The two that are gone are the Chinese companies - Ofo and MoBike. More accurately, they're bikes aren't gone, but they are. They both complained about the 400 bike limit, but I think that's mostly hogwash. Sure, if that were permanent I could see it being a killer, but it likely isn't and they have to know that. Ofo is pulling out of markets all over the US and out of several countries. Originally they said they'd stay in Seattle and San Diego, but they left Seattle and there are rumors they're leaving San Diego too.  

That leaves Spin, Jump and Lime (and the scooter companies, but I'll let WashScoot cover them). And of course Capital Bikeshare, who's operator/supplier motivate was purchased by Lyft this summer (Did I not mention that). While I'm at it, Lime was bought by Uber. Lime has been expanding its scooter fleet and recently announced that it was going to all scooters, just as Spin is recently did. In a recent meeting with Lime staff they indicated that they would be scooter-heavy in the summer, but likely trade out some scooters for bikes in the winter, because they noticed use trends were seasonal, but the recent regulations seem to - at least in part - change that calculation.

the District’s current cap of 400 vehicles per operator—whether scooters or bikes, or both—is “very, very low” given D.C.’s size, and that a new requirement for dockless bikes to have lock capabilities is not “in line” with Lime’s strategy.

So, if DC's goal is to give residents a lot more transportation options, I'd say this current policy isn't succeeding as well as it could. [It's nice to have scooters and Jump bike, but we can do better I think].

Motivate, which also operates the Bay Area's Ford GoBike bike-share program, launched 250 e-bikes there in April following Jump's entry into the area. But there's a cap on the number of bikes because GoBike demanded one as they argued that they had an exclusive contract on docked bikes there. Now people want the cap raised, and also people there blocked bikes from some neighborhoods and maybe they regret that. Whew... Anyway, CaBi is bringing e-bikes here soon too, so if your head isn't spin yet, it will be. 

Soon we’ll be introducing new pedal-assist bicycles as another solution for getting across Metro-DC. Therefore, we’ve changed our Rental Agreement and Liability Waiver and Release to include policies related to pedal-assist bicycles.

The e-bike revolution is totally different from the dockless bikeshare one, but they're happening at the same time, and in some cases overlapping. "Electric bicycle sales in the United States have nearly tripled in the past three years, making them the fastest-growing type of bicycle on the market."

Which brings us to the new regulations that DC is bringing down the pipe, most importantly the lock-to requirement.

Starting in September, riders will have to lock dockless bikes to racks or street signs. More permanent rules will be drafted by the end of the year.

There's a lot to not like about it. First, there's a process complaint. It has come as a surprise, even to me, because there wasn't much communication about it. Like a simple "Hey we're thinking of going lock-to, how would users feel about that?" Then it feels like a poor reaction. Many times people have said that what we need to do is set aside space for dockless bikes and make it clear that "Dockless bikes go here."  We're not trying that (which admittedly requires more work than simply changing the rules), we're just going straight to lock-to. Which brings us to the next complaint, even lock-to can be self locked. The lock-to bikes, like Jump, don't actually know if you've locked to something or not so they can just be left anywhere too, though I've never found one self locked. And then, limiting ourselves to lock-to means that some companies will never come here. As far as I can tell it's just Jump and Pace (which isn't in DC). Of course, as noted above, we're basically down to a few Lime bikes and Jump so that's not a big deal. 

In addition, we're leaving the caps in place which I'm becoming more and more convinced is a bad idea. Especially when the cap is for scooter OR bikes. That means companies aren't offering bikes, not because the bikes are a bad idea, but because every bike means one fewer scooter and the scooters make more money. If there must be a cap, and I'm not convinced there must, then let's break into separate groups. Especially now that Ofo and MoBike are gone. Surely we can handle 800 more bikes with them out of the picture. But, we should really be increasing the cap (which I don't think we need) with each extension of the pilot. If the point is to learn what the effect is, then let's gradually increase the number like someone slowly entering a pool to see what happens at 500, 600 or 1000 bikes per company. There's a hunger for these vehicles,

From the day the systems launched in September, through June of this year, users took more than 625,000 rides on the bikes and scooters, according to DDOT.

That's a little under the pace of CaBi's first year, which got a million trips in the first year, but it shows that people want to ride them. Anyway, the chance to weigh in starts now...

By next year, DDOT aims to have a permanent bikeshare program with equipment standards, fees, data sharing requirements and a mandate to serve all eight wards.

It will take public comment on the issue in September and roll out new rules in January. Residents can also weigh in by emailing [email protected]

Things are in as much flux elsewhere as they are here.  There are as many stories about dockless bikes as there are cities, and every city has taken a different approach with different results. From the wild west of Dallas, to heavily regulated places like San Francisco and Chicago. Cities have capped the number of bikes, limited the areas where they can operate and even mandated which kinds of bikes can and can't be used. 

• Dallas had no bikeshare (which prompted them to dump their mandatory helmet laws), then they had the largest bike fleet in the country (18,000 bikes) without any regulations, and now they have a very modest fleet again as three companies left and regulations passed in July kick in. 
• Chicago passed a rule banning wheel-lock dockless bikes. Instead bikes need to lock-to something else, which is what DC just announced they're doing. 
• Bikeshare has failed in a few places, Seattle and Baltimore to name a couple. In Seattle, much has been made about the helmet law, but in apolitical, they make the case that the real problems had to do with a slow roll-out, a company with no track record, political scandal and a difficult system. I'm no fan of mandatory helmet laws, but Vancouver has one and their bikeshare system has been going strong for two years now. Also, we give the local DOTs a lot of grief, but it's important to remember that CaBi lasting longer than its equipment did was not a guarantee back in 2010. Success takes good management. 
• Baltimore shut down their docked bike system last month, and opted to go with dockless, when it's docked system ran into problems with maintenance, vandalism, theft and a bad app. 
• Even Paris, the city that kicked off the whole bikesharing phenomenon, has had some problems. After a decade of success, the city handed over management of the program to a private consortium who promised to upgrade the fleet and replace mechanical bikes with electric ones (30% of them at least). But people are complaining that the system doesn't work. It's become something called the velibfiasco. 

  A change of company running the Vélib scheme has resulted in far fewer bikes available and hundreds of docking stations out of order, not to mention bikes being vandalized or stolen. So with locals and tourists fuming, Mayor Anne Hidalgo has weighed in by giving the new operator an ultimatum: fix things by September, or else.

 

Worldwide, bikeshare is a mixed bag, though the number of bikes and users continue to grow indicating that the mix has more success than failure. The industry is still trying to figure out what works. Public-private partnerships seem good, but not exclusively so. Helmet laws bad, but not that bad. Functional systems are good. Small systems are bad. E-bikes are doing well. Cheap bikes that fall apart are not. [Some of this seems obvious in retrospect].

So it's going to be more wild times going forward before it all shakes out.

One thing I feel confident about is this: it will all be different next year when Luz Lazo will be writing about how no one likes the new Cavorite lined hover-wagons that are terrifying pedestrians. 

Comments

[Ampersand]

When there were 6-7 companies at once, it mayyyybe made sense to have a cap per company. Now that we're down to Jump and scooters, though, just take the cap off. Crappy ofos and mobikes were dirt cheap, but the scooters and Jump bikes are not. I'm happy to let the companies put as many into the market as they think are viable.

Also, ban cars.

[Dewey]

High time for DC to revise its regulations about ebikes, now that it is operating a mixed fleet Capital Bikeshare should be advocating for equity between pedal bikes, Class 1 & 2 ebikes and e-scooters. It’s stupid they retain the sidewalk ban and don’t revise DC Code to use the comparative negligence standard in auto/ebikes collisions.

[huskerdont]

Why is the sidewalk ban "stupid"? Regular bicycles allowed on crowded downtown sidewalks would be bad enough, but eBikes allowed on them would be worse.

And yes, I know people do it anyway, despite the ban.

[washycle]

huskerdont, I think he's talking about the fact that e-bikes are banned on all sidewalks in the District, but regular bikes are only banned downtown. It's not unreasonable to think that maybe pedelecs should be treated more like bicycles and less like mopeds.

[ACyclistInThePortCIty]

Are small systems doing poorly all other things being equal? I have ridden shared bikes in Albany NY and Boulder Co, and both systems seem viable.

[washcycle]

I don't know. In both Seattle and Baltimore the smallness of the systems were cited as reasons the failed.