I understand people can't just dump bikes wherever they feel like it, but the problem with relying on existing bike racks is these startups are massively increasing bike use. It's hugely convenient to park near your location and I'm actually surprised a company as aggressive about moving forward as Uber would make that decision.

In an ideal world, there would be lots of small bike rack units created, but local councils will lag by years to actually build them.

I think it will be better to work with councils to esablish "virtual racks", ie places where the app will show it's fine to park. Ideally augmented by physical signs and so on, but not requiring the full infrastructure of racks, which are somewhat obsolete in this context.

Make a few parking spots bike-only; no additional infrastructure required. Racks can be added later, or by these companies.

Ofo and Mobike bikes use locks that block the wheel's rotation and can thus be parked anywhere.

Seems like forcing to use an existing bike rack would be a non-starter, since the whole point of dockless bike sharing is that you can just leave the bike in front of your destination regardless of what is there.

The "eyesore" factor is a trivial downside compared to the massive convenience of just being able to park the bike anywhere.

It's not just a "trivial" eyesore in Dallas. It's gotten to the point where there are so many of these dockless bikes around Dallas that there literally isn't enough space on the sidewalk for them, so they start spilling onto roads, train tracks (which cause delays and accidents), blocking sidewalks/paths, etc.

Dockless sounds great in theory, but in practice, humans are assholes and have no problem tossing the bike on the ground with no care to the fact that it's now blocking the sidewalk, road, etc. Then you also have other people who have no problem vandalizing bikes and essentially creating litter that other people are then responsible for cleaning up.

See http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-bike-share-mess-ph...

Ditto in Seattle. And I think it's important to understand that it's not primarily the riders (of whom there are very very few) who are paying to ride these things and then dumping them wherever, it is the "assholes" employed by the bike rental companies who are doing the park-uglifying, yard-infringing, sidewalk-blocking bike spamming.

"Dockless" in theory is only nice if there are a limited number of bikes in distribution. In practice, it means that the employees of the bike rental companies will leave as many of their bikes as they can wherever they want for however long they want (case in point: late last fall there were at least 40 bikes dumped by three rental companies on one two block length of one street in my neighborhood). Cities with city councils that actually care about the quality of life of their residents (SF, Oakland) moved quickly to prohibit these rental companies from spamming their products all over streets, parks, sidewalks, yards. The rest of us have to suffer.

That's exactly the issues that Dallas is going through right now. A few of the bikeshare companies (Ofo, Mobike) are Chinese companies that mass produce cheap bicycles and they don't really seem to care if the bikes get damaged/lost, so they are pretty careless about where and how they place them. I've personally witnessed one of the bikeshare trucks slowly driving down the street while someone in the back literally just threw bikes off the truck onto the sidewalk.

The bikeshare companies also currently seem to be using the method of spamming bikes everywhere and hoping they get used, rather than trying to place them where they are actually needed. There was a picture of one of the companies in Dallas placing bikes on the side of a highway, with no pedestrian access, no sidewalks, and nothing even resembling a bike lane. That's just dangerous.

Fortunately the city is starting to crack down on them a bit, but it's a real shame that these companies took a cool idea and are pretty much ruining it with their piss-poor execution.

The part that irks me maybe the most is that every one of these bikes is both an advertisement and a physical business. Dumping by individuals and businesses is regulated/forbidden. Food trucks are regulated. Newspaper stands are regulated. A corporation can't just set up a dozen kiosks in the middle of a busy sidewalk. Yet spamming a thousand rental bikes willy-nilly around a city is ok?

This whole thing is like a lab experiment in unregulated business expansion. I can't believe it's gone on for as long as it has.

Do you see the irony in the second picture, where a large area has been concreted over for parking a few cars, yet people are complaining about 20 bicycles taking up two car spaces? And similarly for the first picture.

> humans are assholes

I think that's better demonstrated by the gigantic trucks (polluting, climate damaging, endangering pedestrians etc), rather than the bicycles.

> The "eyesore" factor is a trivial downside compared to the massive convenience of just being able to park the bike anywhere.

You're saying the problems they cause other people matter less than the convenience they give to you?

Why are colorful bikes left on sidewalks an eyesore, but rows and rows of cars parked next to sidewalks not?

Order. Cars along a sidewalk are almost always in a straight line - and we recognize via acclimation that this is "normal."

10+ bikes lined up on a sidewalk in a parallel and organized fashion actually aren't much of an eyesore. But ten haphazard bikes, often blocking the sidewalk for pedestrians, is chaotic. Our minds - and interpretation of eyesores - respond accordingly.

I mean, everyone up-thread says "eyesore", but there are other concerns as well.

Chaining a bike to a random object can be a necessity; not everywhere has any bike racks, let alone ones anywhere near where you need them. Chaining a bike to a random object can be perfectly fine.

But people also chain bikes in ways that block access to sidewalks, buildings, and other bits and pieces of the public spaces. It may not be intentional; the way other people use spaces may be different from yours, and it may not be obvious that locking your bike to a particular place may make life more difficult for other people.

Sidewalks aren’t parking lots for bikes. They are “roadways” for walking. If cars were randomly left in the middle of the roads, we might have a more apt comparison. We’r Also be complaining if cars were parked on sidewalks — except maybe in Paris where cars seemingly park wherever the hell the want.

Don't the cars have to pay? Otherwise it seems fair that they should compete for the space.

1. No, most curb parking in most of the United States is free.

2. Where they do have to pay, they pay way under true market value of the land.

..and there are car registration fees, but rarely do I see a requirement for licensing and registration or bikes — nor insurance requirements. Cars in many states are subject to property tax. And gasoline taxes and required annual inspections.

Bikes have none of those requirements. Cars definitely pay for the infrastructure they use.

As far as fair market value for the land: what’s the value of a square meter of sidewalk in Manhattan? Are bikes paying fair market value for the sidewalks upon which they park?

These anti-car arguments are starting to get absurd.

>The "eyesore" factor is a trivial downside compared to the massive convenience of just being able to park the bike anywhere.

Also, seems like less of an eyesore than the numerous cars we (including me) leave parked on the side of the street. Maybe it's just a question of what we are used to.

You should visit Seattle once the weather clears up. You'll see that they "eyesore factor" is very, very real.

I live in Seattle.

Maybe you're ok with a dozen+ orange, green, and yellow bikes intermittently on your corner, in front of your house, or strewn on the paths of public parks.

I'm not.

The bikes are obnoxious, but I confess that the cars are just as obnoxious when you first start letting people park on the street. "Clean" lines typically means nothing there. And it does have a pleasantness that is hard to state.

I say this as someone that now lives somewhere where everyone parks on the street in front of their house. For me, I loved the month or so we didn't have a car, because it was actually somewhat likely that there would be no car in front of our house.

None of this is to defend the bikes that are being left everywhere. Just trying to strengthen the thought that the cars are just as obnoxious, but we have grown to accept that. If anything, I fear we will grow to accept these bikes. I'm still hopeful that the bikes will actually get used and not just strewn about.

Trivial eyesore?

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-bike-sharing-frenzy-col...

You may be right. And SF will be a natural experiment to see which model wins out.

This seems a perfect example of concentrated benefits (riders being able to park wherever) vs. diffuse costs (eyesore to most of the population).

An extremely ironic possible outcome is that given the example of uber, cities may legislate away dockless bikes as non-riders lobby their representatives to minimize eyesores.

Seems like it would make sense to convert 1 in X parking spots to bike-only parking spots. Now they're off the sidewalk yet there's still the convenience of being able to park very near your destination.

That is basically what the bike docks are, most of them (at least in the East Bay) have replaced a few adjacent spots. You could simply distribute more frequent smaller racks. People believe parking is a right and anything that removes it is the end of the world so there is constant pushback.

I use the non-e-bike version of these (socialbicycles.com) on a regular basis and it works quite well. Bikes have GPS, a GSM radio, and are geo-fenced, with a recovery fee charged if you lock outside the zone. My system is quasi-dock based with small geo-fenced hubs within the service area where locking is free, and a small fee ($1)for locking off-hub. People do free-lock or leave them in weird areas, but usually if they intend on using it again.

Certainly not more of an eyesore than parked cars lining city streets.

I'm betting you don't live in a city where three of these rental companies are operating.

I do and I agree with him. I think cars are much more of an eyesore than cute yellow or orange bikes.

You seem to have a hard time acknowledging that someone can disagree with you while fully understanding your point.