What's up, dockless?
Free-standing bikes clog walks, don’t work
It’s been only a few weeks since dockless bikes were launched in the city, and already scores are clogging sidewalks, broken down — or can’t be found at all.
Uber subsidiary JUMP placed 100 of its “pedal-assist” dockless bikes near Fordham University and in the central Bronx on July 28 — and on at least one day last week only eight of them were anywhere to be found in the service area.
Of those, only two were even in rideable condition. The rest were either not charged up or already broken. Five of them were piled together on a sidewalk, all flashing the message, “Bike in repair, sorry for inconvenience.”
“They should come out and fix them — they’re here for nothing now,” griped Fordham student Natalia Amaro, who was trying to score a bike near campus.
Staten Island wasn’t faring much better. There were no JUMP bikes available for most of the day there, either. Instead, some of the bikes that were supposed to be there were on the Manhattan side of the ferry — outside of JUMP’s service area.
JUMP is one of five companies that the city partnered with to bring dockless bikes to areas not serviced by CitiBike, which has docking stations.
JUMP and a second company, Lime, began providing bikes for The Bronx. Lime’s pedal-only bikes were available and working.
Lime and a third company, Pace, debuted pedal-only bikes in the Rockaways in Queens about two weeks earlier, and while the cycles were available for riders, the dropoff-anywhere system wasn’t sitting well with residents.
“They drop them off outside any house or in the middle of the streets and leave them there until someone takes them again,” complained Mike McCann, who lives in the Rockaways. “They could be there for three nights.”
A fourth company, Motivate — which runs CitiBike and was purchased by Lyft in July — and another yet-to-be-named company will provide pedal-only bikes to Coney Island sometime later this year.
Dockless-bike users locate and rent their rides through an app. The cycle then locks itself when a trip is completed.
The human-powered bikes cost $1 per 30-minute ride, while the pedal-assist bikes will cost $1 to unlock and then 15 cents a minute.
City officials said they will use feedback to decide whether to move forward with the five firms.
“We are currently in the evaluation period of the pilot program, and based on company performances, will make a determination on future steps — including the possibility of not moving forward or an expanded pilot,” said Department of Transportation spokesman Alana Morales.
Uber officials said they are working on improving their service and will be adding another 100 bikes to The Bronx in coming days.