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Charlotte Bike / Scooter Sharing


kermit

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1 minute ago, TheOneRJ said:

NC State had Lime bikes about 3 months before Charlotte itself, not Raleigh. Raleigh has had plans for bike sharing since 2011, but they weren’t approved until 2016, with an estimated arrival this year. Charlotte has had bike sharing since 2012, and still has many more options than the entire Triangle. 

Gotcha. I've seen Lime bikes away from campus, though. Is there a limit to how far away they can be? Full disclosure, I am completely ignorant to this subject and don't fully understand the benefits of this over just owning your own bike.

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23 minutes ago, Hunted said:

Gotcha. I've seen Lime bikes away from campus, though. Is there a limit to how far away they can be? Full disclosure, I am completely ignorant to this subject and don't fully understand the benefits of this over just owning your own bike.

I’m sure Lime has expanded into Raleigh/Durham now, but originally only NCSU had them. I’ve never considered buying my own bike, but I did use Spin daily. It’s just more convenient to leave it wherever you want. 

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Encountered a scooter riding wrong way (against the flow)on Stonewall the other day. Had traffic behind me and next to me with construction fencing taking any room from the curb for them to pass. They were lucky I didn't hit them. Not the first time I have seen this since the launch of the scooters. Preceded to be flipped off when I laid on the horn. 

All it will take is one accident for the city to really crackdown, hopefully people can learn to utilize these safely as I believe it is a great concept.

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Sounds like a police matter.   Call the Lime customer service and give the exact street location and exact time.  They will know exactly who it was and see his speed and gps and his flagrancy should be clearly visible on their map.   Then they will ban him.   

 

It is against their terms of service to drive them recklessly.    Make a matter of it.  

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24 minutes ago, ajfunder said:

Encountered a scooter riding wrong way (against the flow)on Stonewall the other day. Had traffic behind me and next to me with construction fencing taking any room from the curb for them to pass. They were lucky I didn't hit them. Not the first time I have seen this since the launch of the scooters. Preceded to be flipped off when I laid on the horn. 

All it will take is one accident for the city to really crackdown, hopefully people can learn to utilize these safely as I believe it is a great concept.

Sunday morning?  We saw a kid joy riding up and down Tryon then.  First noticed him around 3rd street, then again an hour later at 6th where he ignored a stoplight and got hit. The boy was lucky to walk away from it.  Because the construction fencing by the Carolina Theatre blocked her view, the driver had half a second to react and slam the brakes.  

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On 5/24/2018 at 8:49 PM, kermit said:

File under "WTF"

Raleigh is just beginning to roll out DOCKED bike share.  The article suggests that the only dockless bikes in Raleigh are on the NCSU campus.

Seriously?

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article211825199.html

Edit: according you folks below there is plenty of dockless is Raleigh already — a case of bad writing by the N+O

Raleigh got a federal grant to fund their docked system before anyone ever talked about dockless in NC. Charlotte did the same thing for new stations for B-Cycle, they just don't have the stations on the ground yet.

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20 hours ago, JBS said:

I'm seeing tons of people riding the scooters (way more than bikes).  Most I've seen are on sidewalks.  Another reason to eliminate planting strips...

Yep. For Uptown especially the scooters are way more convenient. Smaller, more maneuverable   and quicker than a bicycle. Way more nimble. 

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23 hours ago, Cadi40 said:

I’m dreading the day a pedestrian gets injured or god forbid killed on a scooter, Most likely from a vehicle.

It will certainly be a sad day, but we don't seem to be particularly bothered by any of the 25+ other pedestrians killed by drivers each year, why would a scooter rider be any different?

Quote

Last year there were the most pedestrian deaths — 27 — since the city began keeping records in 2002....

The City Council has approved "Vision Zero," a goal of having no vehicle, biking or pedestrian fatalities. CDOT said closing the two loopholes would be a part of reaching that goal....

Last year was also the second-most dangerous year in terms of overall pedestrian-vehicle crashes, with 379. The year before, 2016, had the most pedestrian-vehicle crashes, with 392.

On a related note, there have been no bike share fatalities (AFAIK) since docked and dockless arrived in Charlotte. My experience in Southend and uptown as a bike rider and ped is that the increased presence of non-car vehicles has actually improved safety for non-drivers.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article209728194.html

 

Edited by kermit
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Today's (06/07/2018) Financial Times reports:  Uber to launch ebike rental service in Europe.

Excerpt;

"The bikes, with a 'pedal assist' function that provides a speed boost and facilitates travel over longer distances, cost $2 for the first half-hour in the US and can be rented through Uber's main ride-hailing app.  Uber's expansion of Jump comes as two new rivals in the US, Lime and Los Angeles-based Bird, are finalizing huge new rounds of funding to fuel their own rapid growth.  Lime, which offers electric and traditional vehicles, and scooter-focused Bird are both looking to raise up to $200M in deals expected to value each of them at about $1 Billion, people with fundraising efforts have said."

"Berlin will be first city outside US to host ride-hailing Jump's electric bicycles."

image.png.0c1ad79eca97ca6900d2e6e3c15858e8.png

Dara Khosrowshahi, left, presents the new bike at the Noah Technology Conference in Berlin © Bloomberg

Links:

(1) https://www.ft.com/content/dd5ac090-699b-11e8-8cf3-0c230fa67aec  -- "Uber to launch ebike rental service in Europe," Financial Times, by Tim Bradshaw and Tobias Buck, June 7, 2018.

(2) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-06-06/uber-electric-bike-rentals-rolling-out-in-europe-video

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I was in South End yesterday and saw a Budget rental truck, short box, parked in the Big Ben area. A man was moving Spin bikes from truck to sidewalk across Tremont at the rail line behind Sullivan Steakhouse. He took care to line them behind the sidewalk leaving room for pedestrian passage. All ten or so were turned facing the street with equal distance between them for access to any bike. I asked him if this was his regular job and he said it is part time for him and he does this for Spin only. For certain that is a popular location to start a ride. It is the first time I have seen support personnel for the dockless bikes.

Edited by tarhoosier
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  • 4 weeks later...
19 minutes ago, Scribe said:

It looks to me there is another benefit of dockless bikes: it has made (it is making) the public more bike literate and maybe even better drivers!

I've had a dozen or so discussions with folks in Charlotte that said something along the lines: since trying out the bikes they are more aware of bikers when they are driving and that dealing with road traffic on a bike is not as easy as it looks.

So, I another win for dockless...

I think having more bikes on the road is definitely making people more aware of their surroundings as they drive.

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I miss bike & scooter shares so much. 

 

They aren’t really around in Washington. There’s so few it’s not even worth it. There’s more scooters than bike, but again. So very, very few it’s practically none. 

Bikeshare is a game changer for Charlotte and it’s amazing. Definitely seen more bikers in CLT (mostly the bikeshare ones too) than I do in Washington. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just rode a Bird scooter from my hotel to Raleigh Union Station (peak urban?). Apparently Raleigh requires scooter riders to have a helmet (per the Bird app). but I saw tons of riders and none were wearing one. They also shut them all down at 9pm, do they do that here?

It was genuinely difficult to find a scooter, several times I was walking towards one that was consumed before I arrived.

#morescooters

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