TheWashCycle

Uber Sells Jump to Lime

In a headline that would be complete gibberish 5 years ago, Uber announced that it was selling Jump to its competitor Lime, which it also owns part of. Jump started in New York back in 2010 and came to DC in 2017. It offered a new kind of dockless bike, one that was both electric and lock-to. It started out with 100 bikes, plans to go to 400 and a desire to get 1000. This was when DC had suddenly been inundated with cheap, dockless bikes as part of a pilot, bikes like Ofo, Spin and MoBike that disappeared from DC's streets in 2018 almost as quickly as they came, but Jump survived and when DC showed an interest in moving to lock-to, it seemed that they had the inside track. I rarely saw freejacked Jump bikes on the street or abandoned ones in the river. They seemed to be different in that sense too. 

Lime survived too though, but only by changing. In the beginning the had cheep green and yellow bikes, but later switched to electric scooters. 

In April 2018, Uber bough Jump reportedly for $100M, and then integrated the service into their app. It appeared they were positioning themselves to become and integrated transportation company, and that looked like good new for Jump too. 

The deal gives Uber access to Jump’s 12,000 dockless, GPS-enabled bikes in 40 cities across six countries — a vast network in the bike-share world that will certainly become even larger as Uber’s capital will help to scale it even further. It also helps fulfill one of the company’s missions to branch out into new modes of transportation.

In the same month there was more good news as DDOT withdrew its plans to charge dockless bikes fees, require lock-to and demand bike rack installation. [In private conversations with Jump management I know they preferred lock-to and were eager to install more bike racks as long as all competitors had to as well]. WAMU asked at the time if dockless bikes and scooters were a fad or a fixture, and the answer appears to be a little of both; or at least that they're here to stay but that the marketplace is still changing quickly. 

By late 2018, the cheap bikes were gone and Jump was one of five applicants for a permit to provide dockless bikes. And though they were pulling out elsewhere, by late 2019 they were the only company offering both e-bikes and electric scooters and they had 975 e-bikes (pretty close to their start-up aspiration); though new e-bike provider Helbiz joined the DC market, launching in late January 2020. Meanwhile in April, Lime, Bird, Bolt and Razor were all kicked of DC streets when they failed to secure permits and Jump was allowed to expand up to 2,500 bikes if they chose to. A month later Covid-19 caused them to pause their service. 

Then Uber sold Jump to Lime, but then also bought more of Lime with an option to buy all of it later.

Lime’s acquisition of Jump occurred as part of a $170-million investment in Lime, partly led by Uber, which already owned a small part of Lime (even though Lime was a competitor of Uber’s Jump the whole time). The latest deal also allows allows Uber to buy Lime in 2022, if it wants.

At the same time, it announced layoffs.

 The company also announced it was laying off 3,700 employees, around 14 percent of its workforce. At the end of April, Lime also laid off roughly the same percentage of workers, amounting to 80 employees without jobs.

The industry was already in turmoil and consolidating/rebalancing. Covid-19 has made an unstable industry even more wobbly.

Things have moved so quickly and with so many changes, it's impossible to say what will happen next. Maybe dockless will get bigger. Maybe it will go away. Maybe it will be companies we recognize. Maybe it will be all new ones. All I can say is hold on to your butts. 

Capital Bikeshare expands to Falls Church, Route 1, MVT and elsewhere

I haven't been doing as good a job of covering CaBi expansion as I once did, and it just keeps happening. Like back in 2016 when it expanded to Tysons (I hope you're not just now reading that here). And then in December, they added stations to Gravelly Point and the parking lot at Teddy Roosevelt Island, as promised, after making an agreement with NPS, one that could result in other stations on NPS land.

The agreement is part of a new permitting process for placing Capital Bikeshare stations on National Park Service land.

Part of that agreement prohibits advertising on NPS-located stations. Now if we can only get one at DCA. 

But wait, there's more. In April, to not much fanfare, the next phase of stations were added in Prince George's County along the Route 1 corridor, with more to follow this summer and fall. There's not one planned for PG County Plaza though. (Update: I never mentioned that the first phase of CaBi in PG County happened in May of 2018.)

Then in May, the system expanded again to Falls Church adding 11 stations to expand the system to 550+. 

Meanwhile, DDOT has been busy adding new stations and expanding others, though not without criticism.

This week and last week, ANCs have barely approved or delayed votes on endorsements for new stations. Commissioners at both meetings, as well as residents, have asked: where’s DDOT? Why aren’t they here to answer questions? DDOT’s absence at these meetings is a significant contributing factor to delay votes and opposition.

Not only are the current seven members continuing to add stations - especially Prince George County, which isn't done with it's phased rollout, but the Fairfax City - GMU  - Vienna region is studying the feasibility of adding stations of their own. So far public support is strong, and it is feasible, but it will require concurrent improvements to the bicycle infrastructure and other support. 

The study recommends starting out with CaBi connections to Mason and Metro and then develop dockless in the future. The CaBi stations would start along Old Lee Highway as a spine. Getting it started would cost about $1M.

Slightly related, Arlington is studying dockless bikes and are accepting comments through the end of the month.

Virginia considering bill to regulate dockless bikes; ban phone use by drivers

The legislative season has started in Virginia, and as always the Virginia Bicycling Federation is doing a great job of keeping people abreast of what is going on this year. And there are several bills that deal with road safety that should matter to cyclists, at the top of the list are bills that would ban the use of “handheld personal communication devices” by drivers.

There's a house bill and a senate bill. These bills expand the current ban

Current law prohibits only the reading of any email or text message and manually entering letters or text in the device as a means of communicating. The bill expands the exemptions to include handheld personal communications devices that are used (i) for navigation or generating audio transmissions when the device is physically mounted to the vehicle; (ii) as an amateur radio or a citizens band radio; (iii) to activate, deactivate, or initiate a factory-installed feature or function on the vehicle; or (iv) for official Department of Transportation or traffic incident management services.

It seems like a common-sense thing, but a similar bill failed last year, so we'll see. 

There's also a bill that would require a vehicle to stop and not pass a vehicle which is stopped for a pedestrian in a crosswalk. This should help a cyclist in the crosswalk too (such as crossing a road on the W&OD Trail), but sometimes the law doesn't see it that way. 

Somewhat related is the new "scooter" bill which has several parts relevanted to DoBi. 

It would regulate scooters and motorized skateboards similarly to how bicycles are; for example allowing their operators to use hand signals and such, and most relevantly allowing scooters in the bike lane.

It would also prevent any local ordinance that prohibits "the parking of a bicycle, electric power-assisted bicycle, or motorized skateboard or scooter on any sidewalk" and it would add a provision that

No person shall park a bicycle, electric power-assisted bicycle, or motorized skateboard or scooter in a manner that impedes the normal movement of pedestrian or other traffic or where such parking is prohibited by official traffic control devices.

Finally, it would allow that

The governing body of any county, city, or town may require persons offering motorized skateboards or scooters, bicycles, or electric power-assited bicycles for hire to be licensed, provided that in the absence of any licensing ordinance or regulation a person may offer motorized skateboards or scooters, bicycles, or electric power-assisted bicycles for hire unless otherwise prohibited by law.

The bill was passed out of the sub-committee and on to the full House Transportation committee by a 7-3 vote after getting support from both Bird and Lime. Of local note:

law enforcement and other officials from Arlington, Alexandria, & Charlottesvile asked for the bill to be tabled until their in-progress Pilot Projects are completed and digested.

VBF is also following Vulnerable Road User and Due Care bills.

[Anti-motorcycle helmet law proponents tried to pass a law allowing motorcyclists to ride without helmets IF they signed up to be organ donors. No dice.] 

At least one ANC sees e-scooter and DoBi regulations differently than me

From the November minutes of the ANC 6A transportation committee

Commissioner Soderman moved that the Committee recommend that ANC 6A provide written comments to DDOT regarding the proposed E-bike & E-scooter regulations and send a letter to City Council expressing these views:

1) General support for the regulations as they will improve public safety with respect to the use of these motorized vehicles;

2) Particular support for the requirement of governors on E-scooters that will restrict the speed to 10 mph until such time as E-scooter operation can be effectively eliminated from sidewalks and other pedestrian walkways. This may require their re-classification so that they are not considered “personal mobility devices”;

3) Additionally, helmets should be required when using any of these motorized vehicles, whether E-scooters or E-bikes – as is already required for motorcycles and

4) Cash payment devices should be designed in such a way that they cannot easily be vandalized.

The motion was seconded by Mr. Fletcher and passed unanimously, 5-0 (Incl. Soderman and Phillips-Gilbert).

I agree with #4 at least. Not sure what messages DDOT was getting from the other ANC's, but this is not encouraging. I'll add that I don't know if the ANC acted on these recommendations or not. 

Five companies apply to provide dockless bikeshare

Despite the concerns of many, it does not seem that DDOT's dockless bikeshare and e-scooter regulations are leaving the market bare. Five companies have applied for a permit to offer dockless bikeshare. Eleven, most of them the same as those offering bikes, applied to offer scooters. 

The five applicants for bikeshare are Riide, Lime, Ridecell, HOPR/CycleHop and JUMP.  Riide will be the only one offering just bikes. If they're all approved and they all go to the maximum, that could add 3,000 new dockless bikes after permits are issues on New Year's Day. 

This is the first time the city is implementing permanent rules and permitting for the dockless vehicles. The companies already operating in the city have been doing so under a temporary pilot program that began in 2017.

Since each of the companies was required to submit a standard application for a 2019 permit, Zimbabwe said the city can now get a better understanding of operations to determine if any changes are needed for 2020.

“We’ll be evaluating the program overall … during 2019 to figure out if we keep the same approach or how it continues to evolve into the future,” Zimbabwe said.

The future of dockless bikeshare

DC recently issued new proposed regulations for dockless bikeshare in DC. A positive way to look at it is that if they didn't want bikeshare, they'd just ban it. But as many, including myself, have pointed out the regulations are more limiting than needed. The problems I see with the regulations are namely:

1. The 600 bikes initial cap is too low. If we want dockless bikeshare to succeed, we need to let it be big enough that people can reliably find a bike and we need it to be big enough for the network effect to benefit customers. There's no good policy reason for this, it's just a way to placate non-customers who are all aflutter about the bikes. We just had an election, if now is not the time to show a little political courage, then I don't know when is.  Last year we had over 2500 dockless bikes on the street. We could at least start there. And we could speed up the raising of the cap. If we did we wouldn't need to require 6 bikes per ward if we didn't have it. All of this also applies to scooters. This is one of the biggest barriers to bikeshare right now.
2. The second biggest barrier is the "lock-to" requirement. I get that the goal is to get bikes out of the way of pedestrians and in the place they belong. But instead of prescribing a solution, we should tell dockless bikeshare companies what the goal is and let them figure out how to get there. We can track this (complaints, surveys, tip-over sensor data) and if a company is failing then we can penalize them. I personally don't think this is as big a problem as people make it out to be - at least based on complaints - but I'm willing to work on fixing it. 
3. The 10mph speed limit for scooters is inconsistent and poorly thought out. It's there because scooters are considered Personal Mobility Devices (PMDs) and the speed limit for PMDs is 10mph. But the PMD classification was set up for electric wheelchairs, and then expanded to include segways. Clearly we need to rethink our vehicle definitions in light of all the new vehicles on the road - and I think that's especially true for scooters. But on top of that, we don't treat other vehicles like this. The segways that tourists rent are required to top out at 10mph. Zipcars aren't required to top out at 65mph, so why limit scooters like this (though forcing Zipcars to top out at 65mph might be a great idea)?
4. The requirement that operators give every member a free helmet if they ask for it seems like something someone would propose if they don't know a lot about bikes. Most people can afford to buy their own helmet if they'd like one. If we want to provide members who are in need a free or discounted helmet, DC should just do that (and I think they already have a program for that). Maybe the $5 per bike fee can help fund it - and there would be more money for it if we had more bikes. It's odd since we don't require people to wear helmets and we aren't even sure they work all that well. Why not require them to give out free gloves, eye protection and pads? CaBi, BTW, does not give out free helmets to any member who asks for one, so there's a fairness/monopoly issue there too.
5. The regulation requiring operators to "offer a low-income customer plan that waives any applicable vehicle deposit and....unlimited trips under 30 mins to any customer with income <= 200% of the fed poverty guide" is coming from a good place, but it's onerous. If DC wants to subsidize transportation for those in need, then THEY should do it, just as they do with Metro or CaBi - again with the fee money they're already charging. Are Lyft, Zipcar and others should be required to do this too?

Even with these regulations, I think dockless is going to survive, but I worry about whether it will thrive the way we want it to.

In May, COG hosted a Dockless Bikeshare Workshop with presentation by DDOT, MCDOT, Alexandria and NPS. At the time, there were still 7 companies operating in DC instead of just 1. 

DDOT - which called dockless vehicles DoVe - pointed out how the law, as currently written, doesn't give good guidance to them. For example the section below makes it seem like dockless is illegal. 

Title 24 Section 24-111.1 - No person shall leave any goods, wares, or merchandise either in or upon any street, avenue, alley, highway, footway, sidewalk, parking, or other public space in the District for a period longer than two (2) hours

They also noted that they like what their seeing so far. Like 25% of users report biking more. Lots of trips go across boundaries. 

MCDOT reported on their pilot in Silver Spring. They designated bike parking areas, required operators to remove improperly parked bikes within an hour and charged operators if the city had to move the bike. Nonetheless, and unlike in DC, most of the 77 comments they got were negative. People complained they were an eyesore, that bikes are left in the wrong places, that they took up valuable rack space, that the batteries died in the winter or that the county shouldn't pay for this (they don't. It neither costs money nor makes money). But others thought they did a good job of filling the gaps in CaBi and makes neighborhoods more transit friendly. And others thought they made the city prettier. 

To deal with complaints, MCDOT reduced the number of bikes in the pilot area, adding more bike parking and tried to do more outreach. 

Bike use peaked in February and then started to drop off. The main areas of defects were the solar panels, back light and rear reflector. Surveys they carried out showed that about 8% of bikes were obstructions and nearly 90% were upright. 

NPS - Their main concerns are how the dockless bikes impact the user experience and the regulatory approval of dockless bikes to operate on parkland. They've met with operators and are working with DDOT on how permit dockless on some NPS property, but not near the monuments.

In October, COG had another workshop - this one on bikes and scooters - and this time DC, Arlington, Baltimore and Montgomery County presented.

DDOT stated that we're in Phase II of a three phase project that will end in 2020. Then -??? There are 5 permitted scooter companies and 2 permitted bike companies, but only 4 and 1 of them are operating. In order to meet the new demand for bike parking, they've added 300 bike racks as part of their on-going "rack attack". Interestingly, Skip has way more inactive vehicles outside of they city. They literally skipped town. They're still working on how to enforce the rules, how to work across the region and how to deal with data.

MoCo reports 18,000 trips in the first 6 months, with only 7% of bikes blocking access. 84% of people want the program to continue, it has expanded bike use, and they need more bike racks. They're looking to expand the program to Bethesda, Wheaton, Viers Mill and other areas.

Arlington has had dockless scooters since June and approved Lime and Bird in October. but I think they're just scooters so far.

So, the future looks good for dockless, but not great and there is a danger of overregulating them. On the upside there are plans to expand both the number of bikes and the area they can operate in. It would great to see PG County get in on this, at least in the close in areas.

Alexandria to Host Demonstration of Dockless Mobility Devices

The City of Alexandria will host an open house and demonstration of dockless mobility devices on Saturday, October 6, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Judy Lowe Neighborhood Park (7 E. Del Ray Ave.). Dockless mobility devices include shared, rechargeable transportation devices, such as e-bikes and scooters, that are available for rent from private companies. The open house will give participants the opportunity to take demonstration rides on new dockless mobility devices in the region, speak with representatives from the rental companies, and provide input to City staff on a potential pilot program to manage the entry of such devices into the Alexandria market.

The City is also seeking community input through an online survey to gauge interest and assess questions and concerns about the potential for a dockless pilot program.

City staff will prepare a recommendation for consideration by City Council this fall, which will incorporate public feedback and the results, to date, of similar pilot programs in the District of Columbia, Montgomery County, and Arlington County. Dockless mobility devices are not currently permitted to be left on public property in Alexandria by rental companies or customers, and City Council has not yet made any decisions about whether to change how these devices are regulated on a pilot basis or beyond.

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. 

Dockless bikeshare makes transit more equitable

A federal report on bikesharing a few years ago included some conclusions about who uses it that spawned several articles on the subject. The report from the Mineta Institute stated that

Data have shown that bikesharing users are more likely be male, Caucasian, wealthier, younger, and have attained higher educational degrees than the general population in which a given bikesharing program resides. As a form of public transportation, it is pivotal that bikesharing serve all socio-economic classes and ethnicities in an urban area.

The last line of that is debatable. Equity is important, but we wouldn't call the bus a failure if rich, white people didn't use it. We should make bikesharing available to all; we should understand why women, POC, less educated and lower-income people aren't using it more and we should make reasonable accommodations to break down barriers to them. It will, for obvious reasons, probably always be true that bikeshare users skew younger. But, without knowing WHY users are predominately male, Caucasian, wealthier and higher educated it's foolish to call changing that "pivotal". 

Anyway it's important to note that some of these imbalances are bigger than others, and that in no case are they exclusive. 

Eric Jafee, writing for Citylab, highlighted a few of the possible reasons why poor people ride less often.

Credit-card ownership, required by some systems, is a non-starter for many low-income city residents. A lack of bike infrastructure in poorer areas certainly doesn't help. There's strong evidence that poor people don't view cycling as favorably as some might expect, which could explain why financial-aid and membership-subsidy programs haven't eliminated the income gap. Cultural barriers may exist above and beyond any money factors.

 The new report points to a more basic problem: Many systems don't make much of an effort to place bike-share stations in low-income neighborhoods. 

That isn't the case with CaBi. While some people complain that there aren't enough stations EOTR, that has more to do with it's location away from downtown than CaBi's lack of effort. There are, at my last count, as many stations in low-income Ward 8 as there are in high-income Ward 3, this despite the fact that beyond Ward 3 CaBi extends into Montgomery County, but that there are no stations in PGC east of the river. DDOT chooses where stations go, and they make an effort (inadequate or not) to place them in all neighborhoods. In fact I've heard as much complaining about this being a waste - putting a station where it is hardly used - as I do that it's unfair. 

 

Station placement is an issue in some places, but it's not enough to explain the imbalance. Both CaBi and Philadelphia's Indego have shown that, as both have considerable outreach programs, but still see white people over-represented. Even if we take income out of it, white people are still more likely to ride. 

9 percent of low-income people of color, 18 percent of high-income people of color, 13 percent of low-income white residents, and 29 percent of high-income white residents have ridden bikeshare in their cities

Matthew Yglesius, writing for Vox offered another theory. 

Maybe rich people love bikeshare because bikeshare is like vacation travel or theater tickets — a high-end recreational amenity that people spend money on when they have money to spare, but that less-fortunate families find it easy to go without.

It's an interesting idea, but it's built upon some fallacies that make me highly skeptical. 

Bike share also isn't an especially reliable means of transportation....What bike share is good for is occasional recreational riding for someone who's not really counting on it.

I use CaBi all the time. Always for transportation and I find it very reliable. More reliable than Metro. According to CaBi studies, 65% of Members use Bikeshare to get to work.

I'm...a Capital Bikeshare member, because sometimes on a nice day when I'm not with my cycling-averse wife it's fun to pedal. A bikeshare membership is less of a hassle that storing a bike I rarely use. And I'm lucky enough to be able to afford the membership fee pretty easily.

My guess is that I'm a pretty typical bike share member in that regard.

My guess is he's wrong. In fact, anecdotally speaking I've heard more about people buying their own bike after becoming a bikeshare membership. 

Another theory was that POC just aren't as interested in bikeshare. But...

[a study out of Portland State]  shows that residents of low-income, majority-minority neighborhoods have an overwhelmingly favorable view of bike share. What many residents of these neighborhoods lack is not a desire to ride, but information on discount programs, access to safe streets and protective gear, and reassurance about liability and hidden fees.

73 percent of the total respondents and 74 percent of low-income people of color agreed that “bike share is useful for people like me.” Ninety-three percent of all respondents said bike share is good for the city, and 89 percent said it was good for the neighborhood. Low-income people of color agreed with these statements at a rate of 89 percent and 86 percent, respectively.

Low-income people of color were far more concerned than white people about being the victim of crime or harassment while riding a bike. Many also said that access to free or discounted helmets would encourage them to ride.

I don't recall where, but someone asked if instead of pushing bikeshare into poor neighborhoods, would we be better off subsidizing a full-service bike shop? It's true that there still isn't a bike shop east of the river despite the need for one. I'd love to see DC make one work beyond the pop-up bike shop (though those are great). Perhaps they could build space for one within libraries or recreation centers and then hire a vendor. Subsidizing a bike shop in "bike shop desserts" is a great idea. I don't know if it would give better value than subsidizing bike share in those same neighborhoods. We should do both. 

Which brings us to dockless bikes. Pretty early on people began to observe that the users of dockless bikes were different than the users of CaBi. Which is great (or not for some people). 

Spin placed about 7 percent of its fleet east of the Anacostia in September 2017. By November, that number had swelled to about 17 percent, thanks to riders shifting bikes to that side of town. Mobike has counted hundreds of trips per week in Wards 7 and 8. And LimeBike’s numbers show that nearly six percent of all trips start or end east of the River.

People have again tried to hypothesize why this is. If it's hard to determine why POC don't use CaBi, it's also hard to figure out why they do use dockless. 

Besides flexibility, dockless bikes have other features that appeal to this clientele. Anna, who rode to the Georgetown waterfront, said she prefers riding dockless because the bikes are easier to rent than those of Capital Bikeshare.

But that's true regardless of race or income. The same article points out that CaBi has a membership fee and dockless does not, which is a valid point. Whatever reason, it's pretty clear that dockless in DC is appealing to a more racially diverse group of riders. 

Similar to Capital Bikeshare, the majority of dockless bike riders are white, but the Virginia Tech survey found that the second-largest ethnic group of dockless bike riders are black, a distinction with Capital Bikeshare data that shows African Americans are the fourth-largest user group. A larger proportion of dockless bike riders earn less than $35,000 a year as compared to Capital Bikeshare riders.

That's a good thing. If we have a service that is providing transportation options to people in need of them, that's good. All the better that it's a clean, healthy and safe one.

Maybe we don't know why underserved groups prefer dockless to docked. It would be good to know in order to make both programs better, but in the end it might be like Vitamin D. We knew for a long time that eating liver was good for you without knowing that it was because of the Vitamin D, and then it took us time to figure out why Vitamin D was good for you. Similarly, knowing that dockless makes bikesharing appealing to groups that were not responding to docked is reason enough to support the program, even if we don't know why.

This is one reason why expanding dockless is important. It will make our transportation system more equitable and give people more choice. In addition we should try to encourage - and even subsidize - bike shops in underserved neighborhoods. And we should expand CaBi stations into close-in PG County areas while also investing in biking facilities that would make PG County, Ward 7 and Ward 8 more bikeable.

Bike advocacy for me has always been primarily about making biking possible for the people who want it, and bikesharing, both dockless and docked, is something that does that.  

Poplar Point development includes a cycletrack, bike parking and bike sharing

Redbrick bought the Poplar Point land along both sides of Howard Avenue SE back in 2013 and for the last year they've been working with the Office of Zoning to come up with a design that meets their requirements. They're planning a massive five building project so that includes a lot more than bike stuff, but the project promises to be pretty bike friendly.

First of all, Howard Road will get a protected bike lane (PBL) from the Anacostia Metro entrance to South Capitol Street. In the rendering above, you can see a cyclist a riding in the Howard Road PBL and you can see the PBL again in the rendering below.

The PBL will be 9 feet wide and separated by a 3 foot wide barrier.

The cycletrack will transition to a sidepath leading to a plaza by the Anacosita Metro Station garage. That plaza will feature a new Capital Bikeshare station and bike racks. 

There will be 672 bicycle spots across two below-grade parking levels, compared to 562 vehicular parking spaces (425 office, 117 residential and 20 retail). That's about 40 more bike parking spaces than required by zoning regs (90 Short Term Spaces and
541 Long Term Spaces). 

And finally, DDOT requested that every resident over 16 be given a Capital Bikeshare membership and an annual car sharing membership, but the developers have asked to instead give either a car sharing or Capital Bikeshare membership because, they argue, "car share memberships are not as popular as they once were" because people would rather use ride hailing. 

This project, when combined with the new Douglass Bridge, should do a lot to make it easier to bike across the Anacostia and into the neighborhoods east of the river, among other things. 

There was a hearing on this last month, and in the transcript there's a humorous discussion about dockless bikeshare. 

[Commissioner Peter May (NPS)] -  first question is, what's with the bike helmet? Is that just a prop? Or did you ride your bike here?

[Tom Skinner (Red Brick)] - Actually that's the Mobike, which I guess are taking over from Capital Bikeshare. So, that's the new way to --

May - So you rode over here on a Mobike and that's your helmet? [WC: I'd like to see this helmet that caused May to comment on it]

Skinner - That's my helmet. I also noticed that you came by bike last time to this down here.

May - And I did tonight. But --

Skinner - And I do appreciate -- I do appreciate it.

[Bill Hellmuth, HOK Architects with Redbrick] - He also lured me into using one of those bikes the other day. And I'm not used to riding around in downtown D.C. So I immediately get on K Street and go under the tunnel on my way back to the office in Georgetown. And I thought I was going to be dead.

{Laughter}

MR. HELLMUTH: So, it's a great service. But never go under the vehicular tunnel because of the traffic.

COMMISSIONER MAY: I would agree with that. And also be very careful where you park your Mobike. Because we're having real problems with them showing up in the wrong places. All right. So anyway, I was just curious about that and whether it was like part of the presentation. Or just, you know. Anyway, that's good. I know the Chairman appreciates knowing how much you love riding around the city.

Later, when talking about the Metro plaza improvements

Zoning Commission Vice Chair Robert Miller - Is the Capital Bikeshare though as part of what you're proffering to put on the WMATA property?

MR. SKINNER: Yes. Yes.

Miller: Yes.

MR. SKINNER: And I mean, and we also wonder whether like the orange and the yellow bikes may, you know, take over the city. So, it's subject toward the teething problems they have with where they're left and everything like that. But, whatever is appropriate in terms of bikeshare, we're big advocates and, you know, fans of that.