Re:Uber Bike – A New Way to Commute or Explore
by jerrycruncher on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:47PM
(#16278264)
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.
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.