Obviously, the guy that made the video was being funny. Complaining about the lack of comfort of your own bike is really laughable. But he's setting up the ease of using the bike share system.
B-Cycle in Madison definitely doesn't have enough station density. I have used to system in Washington, DC, and there are kiosks about every 2-4 blocks in the CBD. Just looking at the map at the B-Cycle website, I can see gaps even within 3/4 mile of the Capitol, and the gaps get bigger as you move away. There are some key areas where I have requested a station. I know eventually those gaps will be filled in, but in the meantime, the system works reliably for going from about Machinery Row to the end of State St. Which is great for a large number of people. And if your errands happen to be near a kiosk, It's great. Both my office mate and I have used B Cycle to go to doctors' appts when we took the bus to work, adn I've used it to get around campus or downtown when I needed to park in downtown for some reason. So, it works for some, not for others. It will get better as the system grows and more people use it and more businesses see the value of having a kiosk in their area. Robbie Webber Transportation Policy Analyst State Smart Transportation Initiative www.ssti.us 608-263-9984 (o) 608-225-0002 (c) [email protected] On Sun, Jun 23, 2013 at 11:23 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Robbie wrote: > > From the guy that brought you the video about why it's nearly impossible > to > > ride in the bike lanes in New York. A very well-made little video > comparing > > how much of a pain a short commute is via taxi, personal bike, and the > new > > bike sharing system. > > > > > http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/06/should-commute-citi-bike-one-mans-hilariously-detailed-analysis/5940/ > > > I was surprised by a couple of things in the video. > > 1) Considering that many of us on this list would probably consider > bicycle commuters to be more intelligent than the average person, I was > astonished when I saw the guy in the video start to draw his "pain in the > ass" chart. He had the marker in the wrong hand; despite his bikie > credentials, he was apparently not smart enough to be left-handed. Total > cognitive dissonance there. Admit it, seeing the marker in his right hand > totally caught you off guard, too, true? > > 2) I don't quite understand why he found his own bike to be a pain in the > ass to use. If you are using it for the entire commute (about the same > distance as my partial commute by Red-Bikes-for-Pay), unless it gets > stolen, it's guaranteed to be right at your point or origin and you can > take it all the way to your destination, not true of the CitiBike, The > biggest problem I've found with bikeshare in Madison is that I very often > get to my station at the end of the day to find no open docks, and the > nearest alternate stations are, well, not very near at all (because my > return station is among the more remote stations) and it ends up taking > more time to return the thing than it would just to walk the mile or two. > On average, this happens about once a week, which means a 20% failure rate > (and usually on days when I'm most in a hurry, or at least it seems that > way), either that I've checked it online and I know I won't be able to find > an open dock and do only a partial return trip and walk the extra distance > or, worse, that there a couple docks open when I depart, but I find it full > when I arrive, so I've already biked a little farther, have to bike a > little more back toward where I started to find an open one (on Friday, I > had to back track two stations, not just one), and then retrace that > distance on foot. In the words of the video guy, HUGE pain in the ass, > > There are a lot of things I like about bCycle, but this massive failure > rate even more than two years into the system demonstrates that it is still > not ready for prime time, still with some bugs to work out. > >
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