Bike-sharing fi rm opens support center

Another component of the sharing economy has arrived in Columbus, bringing new jobs with it.

Motivate, the New Yorkbased company that runs Columbus bike-sharing service CoGo, announced it has opened a remote customerservice center Downtown.

The center, which opened Tuesday, initially will serve only San Francisco’s Ford GoBike system. Eventually, it will answer calls, emails and online requests regarding all of Motivate’s bike-share systems across the country, with the exception of Citi Bike in New York.

CoGo came to Columbus in 2013 and now has 365 bicycles spread among 46 stations throughout the city. Customers can ride bikes

effect. But the department never got around to doing so.

“So, as of right now, there are no formal regulations or law on this,” Knueve said. “That leaves it for the courts.”

The problem comes at a difficult time for retailers who, faced with declining sales in stores, have spent years pouring money into their digital operations to better serve customers as well as stave off competition from such online retailers as Amazon.

Several local retailers would not comment on the issue. But at least one retailer is confident that it has the problem licked.

An L Brands spokeswoman said the Columbus-based retailer’s websites, including Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, are all ADA compliant.

Even so, the issue has come up more and more frequently for clients of digitalmarketing agency Mindstream Interactive, said Scott Curtis, associate vice president of technology at the Columbus-based agency.

“I don’t know that it’s hit a point where everyone’s in a panic mode, but everyone has it in mind,” Curtis said. “We do have guidelines but it’s highly complex. How far do you go? Some of our clients are very into accessibility and they want to go full bore and do everything. But some websites are built in a certain way so that it doesn’t really translate into the accessible world.”

Those retailers who aren’t already compliant with ADA rules face several problems.

One is that because the law is unclear, “it gives rise to litigation because employers don’t know what standard to comply with,” Knueve said. “No matter what you do, someone will come along and say, ‘Oh, that isn’t the standard.’”

The other problem is that revamping the websites can be rather costly, a problem, in particular, for smaller companies that usually have websites built 10 years ago.

“But we are talking about it more and more,” Curtis said. “No company wants a data breach or accessibility problems that wind up in the headlines.”

Unless the Department of Justice issues a ruling, Congress passes a law or WinnDixie gets the judge’s decision overturned, the Florida court case is the precedent to which other retailers should pay attention — or they could find themselves in court, Knueve said.

“There are a number of law firms that focus on ADA accessibility, but you haven’t seen too many of those firms focusing on this website issue,” he said. “This decision may change that.”