urbanSTL

The bikes have all but disappeared from downtown. Not counting the arch grounds, looks like the app shows about six bikes between Broadway and Jefferson.

As for the scooters, rider ignorance is the biggest problem. At least use the bell and slow down when overtaking pedestrians on the sidewalk, as is standard by cyclists on bike trails.

Why are the bike numbers down? As far the scooters, they are wonderful. It will change the way I commute around the city. I also agree people need to follow rules while on them.


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Hacking electric scooters Every homeless person has like three scooters now. They take the brains out, the logos off and they literally hot wire it
https://melmagazine.com/inside-the-lawl ... 887e155b25

*Dockless bike shares are diminishing.

In contrast, docked bike share is still doing well, showing relatively strong year over year growth. In New York City, for example, the dock-based Citi Bike system remains popular and makes a profit, despite no public subsidies. But like many cities, New York, hit the pause button on its docked monopoly, offering pilot programs so officials could see which companies might emerge with a better system — or not (Boston was one notable exception).

We still need a real bikeshare, the municipally funded docked version, where you can be confident that a (working) bike will be in a specific place when you want to travel.

Was bike-sharing just a fad? Is it really over? Will scooters last any longer?

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local ... 0384f.html

Bike share is definitely not a fad but companies found a bigger mouse trap with scooters
The draw to dockless for Cities was that there was no need to spent money up front for stations. Down side is companies didn’t have any incentive to keep bikes when they found better revenue model. I have access to both Lime and Bird internal dashboard and the numbers for scooters are just way ahead of bikes for things like per vehicle per day use, total time on vehicle ect. We will have electric bikes here in the spring. Scooters are here to stay, both lime and bird will have 2000-2500 each in the city by spring

https://www.kmov.com/news/employees-lai ... f3609.html

It'll be interesting to see how the scooters fare in spring.

San Luis Native wrote: ↑

Dec 30, 2018

https://www.kmov.com/news/employees-lai ... f3609.html

It'll be interesting to see how the scooters fare in spring.

That piece is way off- both lime and bird are running 500-700 scooters each right now.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Dec 30, 2018

I have access to both Lime and Bird internal dashboard and the numbers for scooters are just way ahead of bikes for things like per vehicle per day use, total time on vehicle ect.

Do you happen to know what the average trip distance is on scooters?

I always wonder about the scooters' long-term viability, as they all seem totally unmaintained and various levels of unsafe (I handled quite a few as a charger). Plus their lifespan can't be much with the abuse they take.

The companies have certainly figured out that nobody ever went broke overestimating the laziness of the American public.

Lime has certainly made it hard to support the bikeshare end of the biz. In addition to them being impossible to find, they raised the rates on bikes since the start, from $1 per 30 minutes to $1 per unlock plus 5 cents a minute.

eee123 wrote: ↑

Dec 30, 2018

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Dec 30, 2018

I have access to both Lime and Bird internal dashboard and the numbers for scooters are just way ahead of bikes for things like per vehicle per day use, total time on vehicle ect.

Do you happen to know what the average trip distance is on scooters?

I always wonder about the scooters' long-term viability, as they all seem totally unmaintained and various levels of unsafe (I handled quite a few as a charger). Plus their lifespan can't be much with the abuse they take.

The companies have certainly figured out that nobody ever went broke overestimating the laziness of the American public.

Lime has certainly made it hard to support the bikeshare end of the biz. In addition to them being impossible to find, they raised the rates on bikes since the start, from $1 per 30 minutes to $1 per unlock plus 5 cents a minute.

its about a mile per trip. there have been about 505,000 scooter trips since August 1.

Spending $2.50 to save 10 minutes or less vs. walking while also not burning any calories seems a waste to me.

But Lime's messaging that says, in effect, "you're saving the earth by relying on a battery rather than an internal combustion engine to move distances most in the world would walk" is really stupid.

But this is where we are with the green movement in the US.

I think there are good cases for lime scooters. Over the summer when it was 90+ I was planning on killing time at the history museum while my car was out of commission. It's a 25 min walk from the CWE or 10 min on a lime bike, roughly the same on a scooter. On a hot day the first 2 options didn't seem appealing. I forgot about the scooter option and took the train which cost $2.50 and took 25 minutes from door to door. I would have gladly taken a scooter. I was in Baltimore recently on a short stay and took a scooter so I can explore more neighborhoods in the given time.

No more peddle power:

https://www.stltoday.com/news/traffic/a ... op-story-1

Saw this bad boy today off Wash Ave

That looks a million times better than the Lime/Birds all over the place.

That station's been there for years. I think they just updgraded it, but it's definitely not new and definitely not for the general public.

I've never seen anyone riding them, but I always assumed there was another dock somewhere, by a US Bank facility or something. After all, a one-dock bikeshare is not real useful.

The number of Bird scooters out there is getting absurd. There are maybe 40 at some corners downtown. I counted 26 in 30 linear feet of sidewalk in one spot. They're exponentially outnumbering the other two companies.

I assume Bird has passed the 2,500 soft cap put forth in the city regulations at some point (recently?).

After 2500 bikes have 6 of 16 been deployed, if the company can demonstrate an upward trend in rides per bike per day and has implemented their education and social equity plan then the Director of Streets can approve an increase in fleet size. The city would like to see at least 2 rides per bike per day or other metric analyzing bike usage to be considered for an increase in a fleet above 2500 bikes.

I am still not sure if Bi-State's efforts to establish some dedicated bike corrals / charging stations are ongoing or if that is dead with the influx of free-range scooters, but it might be time to reconsider in some areas, at the very least around city MetroLink stations.

urbanitas wrote:I am still not sure if Bi-State's efforts to establish some dedicated bike corrals / charging stations are ongoing or if that is dead with the influx of free-range scooters, but it might be time to reconsider in some areas, at the very least around city MetroLink stations.

Dead. New Executive Director / CEO laid off a lot of great people doing innovative things, including guide any and all bike share efforts.

^^ This is the outcome when media lets racist white people from Chesterfield control the narrative on public transportation in our region.

The city (Scott O), alongside advocate orgs, stakeholders, and a few private citizens have taken on a lot of that responsibility now. I don’t imagine those conversations include docked bikeshare at this point.

eee123 wrote: The number of Bird scooters out there is getting absurd. There are maybe 40 at some corners downtown. I counted 26 in 30 linear feet of sidewalk in one spot. They're exponentially outnumbering the other two companies.

Did you count the number of unoccupied cars sitting on the streets downtown?

While the current business model of these scooters is unsustainable and in some cases annoying or dangerous, the economic impact of these scooters should be kept in mind.

I would like to see the numbers on how many people in the area make their living off of charging scooters. I drive around the central corridor a lot for work and I usually see around 2-3 chargers a day loading or unloading scooters to their vehicles. Some have even invested in large vans or trucks to increase scooter capacity. 

Not to mention the impact of having a trendy, effective, and fun transportation option available in a city that is almost perfectly built for scooters. Riding scooters in St. Louis is a dream compared to places like Nashville.