In SF those aren't very cheap, and you also replace the anxiety of "will my bike be stolen" with "will there be any bikes left when I need one?" and "will there be any docking stations available near my destination?"

I use bike shares opportunistically, but they are not a reliable mode of transport.

CitiBikes in NYC are a bit different than in SF. Honestly, bike theft is an anecdotal thing and it’s def a problem in New York, but I definitely think it is worse in SF.

As a pure anecdote, my husband had his bike outside in Prospect Heights for 3 or 4 years literally not moved. It had a lock but he didn’t even use the bike. It got weathered and abused and after literal years, I think it was finally stolen. In Seattle, where his has been broken into multiple times in a locked garage in our luxury building, I have no doubt that an untouched bike would have lasted a few weeks at most.

But that’s all anecdotal. I can say that in the 5 years or so that I used the CitiBike system, I never had a problem either finding a bike and the pricing was also more than fair. I frequently would take a bike from near Union Square and ride across the Brooklyn Bridge home on nice afternoons. I never once had a problem getting a bike or returning it to its drop off place near my apartment.

And the app/locator lets you know the status of bikes at any time so you can know if there is a bike at a specific site or not.

This might have changed in the last few years, but if anything, the city had a hard time convincing people to use the bikes. The system is a lot more efficient than the Lime bike/scooter setup that a lot of other cities like Seattle have (people in Seattle also don’t know how to use bike lanes and use the fucking sidewalks like assholes, because Seattle).

In NY I’ve yet to see this happen. Rather it’s an issue of , is there anywhere to dock the bike. The outer boroughs are also experimenting with Electric Scooters.

This is not a fix. It's exactly the sort of extra thing I don't want to deal with when I'm cycling.

It really feels more careless to just ditch your bicycle on the side of the road and forget about it than lock it. I admit it's not a big thing, but as I tried to convey, small things like this add up.

At least in NYC, there are bike docks - you don't just leave them wherever. This was quite controversial because I think each bike dock(which supports about 20 bikes) takes up 1-2 street parking spaces, so drivers were up in arms that these bike docks would destroy street parking in NYC..

Yeah but they're somewhat less convenient, you never know the quality of the bikes or whether there will be one available, and over time it's usually far more expensive (I literally just did this calculation for myself in DC, took about 6m of daily commuting to be even and then after that you're saving money). Luckily I work in a neighborhood crawling with cops so there is very little risk when I lock my scooter outside, but I definitely don't take it to other neighborhoods and leave it outside (I've had some funny conversations checking it with the coatcheck at events after work).