The city provides its air as a disposal site for vehicle pollution. That’s a pretty big subsidy, and I can think of more.
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Same. There’s a Nike bikey down the street from me that strayed a lil too far from home. It’s been there three days now.
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It’s very bad in Philly, too. Any news article about increasing bike lanes, or responses to fatalities brings out angry responses from car drivers. They mostly talk about how many cyclists they see ignoring traffic laws or engaging in risky behavior like riding on the sidewalks.
A town near mine spent $20,000 to paint bike sharrows on many streets. The negative reaction was swift, especially after reminders were posted that state law requires cars to give 4 feet of clearance while passing a bicycle. In a town full of narrow streets with cars parked on both sides, the likelihood of being stuck behind bike traffic did not go over well.
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If you think driving isn’t heavily subsidized in your city you should check your zoning codes or the admissions for your local hospital emergency asthma admissions some time.
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And the reason for that is because bike shares encourage people to ride bikes more. I’m a really good case in point, I use bike shares literally every day here in San Francisco, while I wasn’t riding my own bike very often previously because of the danger of leaving it locked up. In my case, without easily available bike share, I use my car, which is just a bad thing all around.
I absolutely love bike shares in all forms, especially dockless bike shares, and yes even the scooters. They’re a fantastic way to cut down car traffic of all kinds, including the Lyfts and Ubers of the world.
That said, if it’s going to be so expensive for the city to provide these bike shares, I think they should allow more private companies to do it on their own dime. There’s clearly many companies wanting to do it, all for free to the city. But this time please lets have a whole lot more transparency to the approval process than whatever backroom shinanigans allowed Jump to get their permit:
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Here in my area, bike-shares are sponsored by Ford. Locals refer to the bike-docks as gentrification markers, because that’s exactly what they are.
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Especially given the heavy health costs of that pollution + ER costs, lost productivity (even restricted only to public employees), etc.
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"t e r r o r i z e d _ b y _ t h i s _ t h i n g _ t h a t _ r e a l l y _ e x i s t s."
_
big phat lololol right there
Dockless bike shares are a two edged sword. I like the fact that the bikes are available in ares where there are no docking stations and it provides a better map of where people actually ride.
On the other hand, it adds to the street clutter having bikes spread all over town - it seems that too many users feel that they have no requirement to be considerate when parking the bike leading to more aggrevation for pedestrians, especially wheelchair and pushchair users.
so unless we can teach the riders to be socially responsible, I would rather stick with docking bike shares.
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Reminds me of people who think they are going to die of cancer if they smell a cigarette on the street, completely unaware that the cars driving past them (and which they drive) are releasing way more carcinogens and particulates.
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I never get tired of Dorothy Rabinowitz being interviewed on the WSJ website. With this anniversary, we must recall her all-too-prescient warnings:
INTERVIEWER: We’ve got WSJ editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz to tell us what she thinks. Dorothy, why would you want a program like this in the first place? Are we too fat?
Do not ask me to enter the mind of the totalitarians running this government of the city. Look, I represent the majority of citizens. The majority of citizens of this city are appalled by what has happened. And I would like to say to the people who dont live in New York, that this means something much more than the specifics of this dreadful program. It means: envision what happens when you get a government that is run by an autocratic mayor or other leader, and a government before which you are helpless. We now look at a city whose best neighborhoods are absolutely, you know, begrimed is the word, by these blazing, blue Citibank bikes. All of the finest, most picturesque parts of the city. It is shocking, to walk around the city, to see how much of this they have sneaked under the radar "in the interests of the environment."
Well, it’s not just shocking. It’s also a fire hazard, in some cases, because the fire trucks can’t get into subway stations and park there because you’ve got Citibank racks. I do want to throw some statistics at you, though, Dorothy. Citi Journal’s Nicole Gelinas came out with a piece. She said: “For almost 40 years, no pedestrians have died underneath a bike in New York. But 597 have been hit with cars and trucks.”
Yes.
So, is there a chance that the danger is overblown?
Oh, well, look, before this, it was dangerous. Before this, every citizen knew -- who's in any way sentient -- that the most important danger is not the Yellow Cabs. It is the bicyclists, who veer and out of the sidewalk, empowered by the city administration, with the idea that they are privileged because "they are helping, they are part of all of the good forward-looking things." In the meantime, I invite the mayor and his ideology-maddened traffic commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, to stand on lower Fifth Avenue, and to see exactly what happens, every day. There is nobody who doesn't blow by every traffic light, and worse, cut in and out of the lanes, if the bike lane doesn't suit them, and, onto the sidewalks. Now, we have a mayor who is a practiced denier. It is part of his makeup. You tell this mayor, "Well, you know, there are people sleeping on the subways and urinating," and the mayor says, "Don't-- don't-- don't give me anecdotal stuff." [...]
I have to say this. If you get into a taxi now, you'll see, in your face, signs saying "Be very careful" -- this is directed at the driver -- "If you open the door, you could hit a bicyclist." Where is the parallel warning to people saying "If you are a cyclist, you are required to-- the rules of the road are yours. You are required not to go on the sidewalk." None of this takes place, Mary.
Well, Dorothy, I think you’d have to have that in 100 languages, because tourists are going to get on these bikes as well–
Who know nothing...
…Looking up in the bright lights in Times Square–
Who are wavering in the streets... They don't know the rules of the road. If the mayor had had any guts he would have undertaken a study, and said: What do we think of [this, to] the citizens of the city. But, he knew. He knew, that they were against it. The bike lobby is an all-powerful enterprise. But even without it, when you have this ideology, this forward-looking-ness, the mayors stamp on this city, which he intends to leave, is permanent, unless some enterprising new mayor undertakes to redig all of the streets and preserve our traffic patterns. And, this is a serious matter. The fact that the city is helpless before the driven, personal, and ideological passions of its leader, in the interests, allegedly, of the good of the city. This can take many forms, but we have seen the most dramatic exposition of this in our city.
With the latest example being the bike share program. New York is not London or Paris–
Or Amsterdam.
Or Amsterdam. We’re going to keep a close eye on it.
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The fewer private cars on the streets of big cities the better. This is just one more means to that end, so of course knuckleheads who think automobiles are a symbol of rugged individualism and conservative shareholders in the car and fossil fuel industry will hate it.
The best of all was Dorothy Rabinowitz, a columnist of great repute in New York letters
She’s a certain type of New York character, a relatively liberal and reasonable person who morphed into a crank when she got old. Not surprising she’s ended up on the WSJ’s op-ed page, a sinkhole of right-wing and Libertarian craziness.
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So I have a question-- without all the infrastructure provided for vehicle parking (driveways, on-street, garages, etc…) do you think cars would be parked in a similarly haphazard fashion?
Good bike storage doesn’t have to be docking stations (that’s more about the bike-share operator trying to limit costs,) and bike racks are pretty infinitely customizable, and far cheaper than say, maintaining on-street parking for cars.
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That’s just bonkers. Holy hell.
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Good luck, sounds like a tough spot since clearly nothing is free. Given your details, I suspect you may be in regular correspondence with the local government (or may be on it?). You may want to influence people to not think of bike sharing as something that should be revenue neutral. After all plenty of government services are not judged based on revenue but value to society: security, transportation, fire protection come to mind. It could be worth talking to competitors or looking at other alternatives too - 200K buys a lot of bikes.
A significant fraction of my countrymen think that “government should be run like a business,” which means that all operations should be run at a profit, or at least be revenue-neutral. Security? Hire a guard service! Transportation? Pay your way - and you had better be able to afford the toll on the footpath, because the owner of the path charges for it. Fire protection? We had fire protection from the insurance companies before there were fire brigades? The courts? Have them support themselves by charging both parties fees - and whoever can’t pay, loses.
When we have that attitude about key functions of government, how can we possibly expect a frippery like bike-sharing to be anything less than revenue-neutral?
(FWIW, I don’t agree with a significant fraction of my countrymen, and get weird looks for continuing to use human-powered transportation in the upstate New York winter.)
I think that one has already been figured out by a lot of nondualists, including dudes like Buddha and Jesus — it’s the simple realization that All is One. 
But seriously, if people saw themselves as part of a grand unified system, instead of more exclusively as individuals, it seems like it would help! Because, obviously, helping others would be seen as helping one’s self.
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Oh, well look what popped up on Aeon, just to reply to myself here:
It’s funny, I hear people say that often, but I’ve never actually seen even a single instance of it here in downtown San Francisco. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but it doesn’t seem to be the epidemic that a lot of people complain about, in my experience at least.
Also I think it needs to be kept in mind that there’s two types of dockless: vehicles that lock to a solid object like Jump Bike here in SF, and vehicles you just leave wherever like the scooters. The latter is a lot easier to leave in the way of course.
I really hope something can be worked out, I think it would be a real loss to over-regulate it and keep only the docked bikes, which I can’t use for about half the places I’m going since, as @Melz2 nicely put it, they’re gentrification markers. And call me reckless but I’d way rather allow too many vehicle share programs and fix whatever problems arise than over-regulating in an effort to prevent any problems from ever happening.
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