urbanMSP

Minneapolis has an exclusive contract with Nice Ride through Aug 1, 2021, as I read it. Though I am not a contract lawyer, or even someone who knows anything about it.

https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download ... %20RCA.pdf

Some noteworthy pieces from the agreement:

[

• Requires dockless bicycles to be self-locking, and parked within defined virtual stations
  when not in use.

That last one seems to imply that Nice Ride couldn't do a true dockless program within the current agreement.

That’s unfortunate. I think the virtual stations to work, but they are going to have to have about 2 to 3 per block.


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sombody parked a Lime scooter next to the Nice Ride station in Loring. Nice Ride balancing driver happen to have been at the station, and I saw him carry the scooter from the grass next to the station to near the trash bins further inwards on the park. Likely they are now monitoring their location and are nicely moving them accordingly. Would of been not-so-nice had they placed it inside the dumpster.

I can't imagine that a Nice Ride rebalancer is monitoring the location of the scooters and moving them accordingly. It kinda sounds like he wanted to keep the scooters away from the bikes, TBH.

Minneapolis has an exclusive contract with Nice Ride through Aug 1, 2021, as I read it. Though I am not a contract lawyer, or even someone who knows anything about it.

https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download ... %20RCA.pdf

Some noteworthy pieces from the agreement:

[

• Requires dockless bicycles to be self-locking, and parked within defined virtual stations
  when not in use.

That last one seems to imply that Nice Ride couldn't do a true dockless program within the current agreement.

That’s unfortunate. I think the virtual stations to work, but they are going to have to have about 2 to 3 per block.


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2 or 3 per block seems excessive. I would think having a corral on alternating corners is more than sufficient. (By alternating, I mean you'd have one every other block on each street, and you'd stagger the streets. For example, if Bryant/25th had a corral, then Bryant/26th wouldn't, but Aldrich/26th and Colfax/26th would.) That way you're never more than one block from a corral. If you can't walk a max of one block from a corral to your destination, you probably can't ride a bike, either.

I still prefer docking systems, but if dockless is really gonna happen then this seems like the right compromise to me.

Next to a NiceRide station seems like a perfectly reasonable place to park an escooter.

I think the problem I now have is that NRMN is actually operated by a for profit business (Motivate) and that for profit business was just bought by Lyft. So basically Minneapolis and St Paul or Edina or Golden Valley these cities are giving sole operating rights to for profit companies. On top of that cities are choosing to go with different operators as well so there is no consistency across the cities. These dockless services whether it be bikes ebikes or scooters are providing awesome ways for that last mile transit and by limiting the competition you're limiting peoples options. Cities need to adopt an open licencing system that allows anyone to set up but pay their share in fees while keeping the amount of bikes on the street from these companies from going insane.

I think the problem I now have is that NRMN is actually operated by a for profit business (Motivate) and that for profit business was just bought by Lyft. So basically Minneapolis and St Paul or Edina or Golden Valley these cities are giving sole operating rights to for profit companies. On top of that cities are choosing to go with different operators as well so there is no consistency across the cities. These dockless services whether it be bikes ebikes or scooters are providing awesome ways for that last mile transit and by limiting the competition you're limiting peoples options. Cities need to adopt an open licencing system that allows anyone to set up but pay their share in fees while keeping the amount of bikes on the street from these companies from going insane.

Mpls’ contract is exclusive, but are the suburbs’?

I think Lime just offered it to each suburb for free, and they said ‘why not?’.

Overall I agree with you. I think the Met Council should enforce uniform regulations, allowing competition and bikes/scooters/whatever should be allowed everywhere.

Bike/scooters are transit and should be regulated as part of the regional transportation system.

You are right I misinterpreted what they meant by agreement. But Minneapolis and St. Paul are choosing to give exclusive contracts. Also forgot to add that Uber is a major investor in Lime and plans to add the ability for you to rent the bikes through the main Uber app as well.

I like your idea about using the Met Council but I don't think using them to enforce it other than to allow competition would be a good idea. I think they should lay the base regulations. Cities should have some control over it but smaller cities could just take the Met Council plan off the shelf and use it to bring the services to their area.

Minneapolis has an exclusive contract with Nice Ride through Aug 1, 2021, as I read it. Though I am not a contract lawyer, or even someone who knows anything about it.

https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download ... %20RCA.pdf

Some noteworthy pieces from the agreement:

[

• Requires dockless bicycles to be self-locking, and parked within defined virtual stations
  when not in use.

That last one seems to imply that Nice Ride couldn't do a true dockless program within the current agreement.

That’s unfortunate. I think the virtual stations to work, but they are going to have to have about 2 to 3 per block.


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2 or 3 per block seems excessive. I would think having a corral on alternating corners is more than sufficient. (By alternating, I mean you'd have one every other block on each street, and you'd stagger the streets. For example, if Bryant/25th had a corral, then Bryant/26th wouldn't, but Aldrich/26th and Colfax/26th would.) That way you're never more than one block from a corral. If you can't walk a max of one block from a corral to your destination, you probably can't ride a bike, either.

I still prefer docking systems, but if dockless is really gonna happen then this seems like the right compromise to me.

I like your idea about using an alternating corral structure. I am thinking in particularly about it being an issue on the north-south blocks. North-south blocks are about two times the length of an east west block.






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2 or 3 per block seems excessive. I would think having a corral on alternating corners is more than sufficient. (By alternating, I mean you'd have one every other block on each street, and you'd stagger the streets. For example, if Bryant/25th had a corral, then Bryant/26th wouldn't, but Aldrich/26th and Colfax/26th would.) That way you're never more than one block from a corral. If you can't walk a max of one block from a corral to your destination, you probably can't ride a bike, either.

I still prefer docking systems, but if dockless is really gonna happen then this seems like the right compromise to me.

Definitely want to see dockless stations downtown on everyblock down Hennepin, Nicollet, Washington, 3rd Ave, Park Ave, and Portland Ave at least! Then every other block at least on all the other bike lane routes downtown.

Then out in the single family household areas ever 2-4 blocks seem reasonable depending on area bikeability and biking data. I don't mind walking a few extra block TO the bike station but if I have to walk 4 blocks to the bike station overshoot my destination and walk another 4 blocks then what the heck is the value of it? Nice Ride has tons of data on the major bike routes. I'm confident they will eventually get it right. The first phase this year is only the beginning so I'm sure it won't be to full sized rollout just yet. It seems like this year the goal is to prove to the city we are responsible enough to NOT abuse the system and leave our toys.. um. I mean BIKES laying around everywhere! I seen several scooters blocking sidewalks in ways that I feel a conspiracy is afoot. NIMBY's must be moving them in hopes to piss off city officials to ban them.. I'm just hoping we are able to prove how NICE we truly are and are able to prove to the city we are responsible enough to have NICE things!

I will have to save my rant about how they need to make sure we have dockless stations all along the midtown greenway as well as other greenways which are outrageously empty of bike shares. It's a very important east west route and we only have ONE station along the greenway! I wanted to stop off at the bike shop along the midway the other day but the station was not an option so I couldn't! Again maybe a conspiracy as keeping nice rider users out of bike shops might be good way to retain customers but I doubt that is the case.

Nice Ride discusses their upcoming virtual parking model: a sign and some tape.



Some highlights:

• "Nice Ride’s new master plan calls for about 140 new 'virtual hubs' for the system’s future bikes, while also adding parking spaces next to 60 of the most popular 200 existing physical docks."
• "Before a station was about $30,000. Now it’s about $80."
• GPS will
• Nice Ride plans to start with 1,500 dockless bikes in 2018. Depending on performance, that number will increase by 1,500 per year until a total of 7,700 dockless bikes is reached.

These stations are a nice way to control the additions of dockless bikes into our system. That said I think now that they are only $80 or so business or areas should be able to submit applications for hubs outside of their businesses.

I am also very interested in how this will work with it not being in St. Paul as well. This is really going to restrict Motivates growth where as Lime bikes are basically already on free reign throughout Minneapolis. Since they don't have to be returned to any sort of Hub I have already seen several lime bikes throughout Minneapolis and that was before they officially launched in St. Paul.

Any way I really enjoy this form of transit and hope that it all succeeds and can work for everyone. I guess we will just have to wait and see how it turns out.

I like that Lime is testing dockless in four cities now. Granted they hardly have any bikes, but I think it will be able to provide Nice Ride with valuable information. It's gonna be a much more competitive market now and I'm glad Nice Ride has the jump on all of them. I'm a bit concerned that Nice Ride won't offer a seasonal pass for the blue bikes. Unless it's not announced yet. I bike frequently with my personal bike now but I absolutely love having a nice ride membership. I can just use my key fob and grab a bike to take to the train and not worry about my bike being left there all day. Often I will take a bike to the train, and then on my way back I might walk or take the skyway if it's raining or is hotter out. Or maybe even transfer and take the bus. Having that flexible transportation is nice. paying a dollar each time not so NICE.

Now if the memberships were higher priced then that wouldn't make sense either since costs would be going down for less station costs but... I'd still pay for it myself. Just not if I had to pay a dollar every time. I'd just justify walking or taking my personal bike to save the buck. But a single yearly cost... That I can justify since it's less than my old Comcast bill! ...funny how numbers work haah!

What happens if people don’t park in the virtual stations? 150 virtual stations don’t seem like many.


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What happens if people don’t park in the virtual stations? 150 virtual stations don’t seem like many.


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I imagine Nice Ride will start giving those users strikes for repeat offenses (as sombody could have moved the bike outside of a spot, as they are not locked to the ground} and then would possibly send out a retraining video to the user or charge them fee's or threaten to ban that user if they continue to break the rules. There will be obvious ways to monitory that since all bikes have gps built in.

Maybe even the bikes won't lock unless they are within range of a station, but that tech I think might not be there yet.

If people don't park in the current stations, they just keep getting charged. They have your credit card information. I imagine it would be the same with the virtual ones.

The GPS tech used in these bikes is definitely not there yet. There's been talk of pairing that with NFC to increase accuracy, but these stations definitely will not be able to tell if you're parked within the lines or a couple feet away.

I thought the initial rollout was going to be 500 stations. That article states only 150 stations. That tells me that most the stations will probably be in downtown and uptown, and will not serve many residential areas.


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I thought the initial rollout was going to be 500 stations. That article states only 150 stations. That tells me that most the stations will probably be in downtown and uptown, and will not serve many residential areas.


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reporters sometimes get the details more wrong than typical people like up who stay up to date on all the finer details. It will be phased in over several years. So likely a limited amount this season, as it's more of a test this year than anything else. I mean it's almost winter already, about 90 days left in the season right? So maybe they are correct in saying only 150 stations for this fall.

Nice Ride was saying 500 this year as recently as a few months ago.