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Toronto Bike Share

unforgettableid said:
I think that, in recent months: Bike Share may have been doing little or no rebalancing at all, near the Lawrence West and Eglinton West subway stations in suburban North York. I guess maybe they don't have enough money or staff to afford to do the rebalancing.

Rebalancing costs money. They can probably get better value per dollar by doing most rebalancing in busier areas, like along Yonge Street and Bloor Street.

Is there any good solution?

A.) Should Bike Share increase some or all of its fees, in order to raise more revenue? If so, which fees?

B.) Maybe, when a person buys a yearly membership, Bike Share should consider their home address, and should charge higher membership fees for people farther away from downtown?

C.) Would it make sense to create a premium annual membership? It could cost, say, $200 per year. It could let you make unlimited 60-minute trips on all mechanical bikes. Maybe they could also send you a gold key card with the words "Bike Share Supporter" on it.
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A much better solution to rebalancing is a program which rewards people for riding bikes from full racks and docking them into empty ones.
 
slicecom said:
A much better solution to rebalancing is a program which rewards people for riding bikes from full racks and docking them into empty ones.
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When I want a Bike I want to go from A to B so I am not sure if I would make any effort to go to a dock with more (or less) bikes unless it was VERY close to my desired departure/arrival point. Frankly BikeShare is very cheap so .....
 
DSC said:
When I want a Bike I want to go from A to B so I am not sure if I would make any effort to go to a dock with more (or less) bikes unless it was VERY close to my desired departure/arrival point. Frankly BikeShare is very cheap so .....
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I ride bike share daily, mostly for fresh air as I work from home, so no commuting. I'd totally spend some time riding bikes from full racks to empty ones if there was an incentive or it was gamified in the app. Thats basically what I do for my daily exercise on my own anyways!
 
unforgettableid said:
I think that, in recent months: Bike Share may have been doing little or no rebalancing at all, near the Lawrence West and Eglinton West subway stations in suburban North York. I guess maybe they don't have enough money or staff to afford to do the rebalancing.
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Every morning on average, even though I have three bike share stations within a 2 minute walk to my building, I am walking > 10-15 minutes to find a bike.

They are not rebalancing them much. I thought it would get better with the colder months and there being less competition for bikes in the morning commute, but I am not having much luck.

Even with accounting for the additional walk to find a bike, it is still better than taking the TTC, but I wish it didn't have to be like this.
 
bearcat said:
I would definitely pay more money for a "premium" annual membership just for the gold key card, the 60-minute trips would be a bonus 🤣.
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Interesting! Why would you spend so much money mainly just to get a cheap plastic key card, possibly coated with a bit of inexpensive gold leaf?

bearcat said:
The two stations you specifically mentioned are only a few weeks old I think, perhaps Bike Share is just behind in including them into their daily rebalancing routine.
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I don't just mean those two exact stations. I also mean the half dozen or so stations in between them, some of which have been around for a year or more.

afransen said:
Another option is to 'reward' rebalancing movements by users (moving bikes from full stations/areas to empty stations/areas). Maybe free rides or credits toward ebike rides? Low cost for bikeshare and helps to balance the flow of bikes.
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I once spoke with someone in the know. These rewards would be cheap but not free to implement. Also, some people might get these rewards inadvertently, when they weren't even trying to rebalance anything. Toronto has decided not to establish such rewards for now, and has decided to continue to rely on paid rebalancers instead.

Midtown Urbanist said:
Every morning on average, even though I have three bike share stations within a 2 minute walk to my building, I am walking > 10-15 minutes to find a bike.

They are not rebalancing them much. I thought it would get better with the colder months and there being less competition for bikes in the morning commute, but I am not having much luck.

Even with accounting for the additional walk to find a bike, it is still better than taking the TTC, but I wish it didn't have to be like this.
Click to expand...

As the weather gets colder, some of the seasonal rebalancing staff probably leave and move on to other jobs (maybe in retail stores). So, no, the colder months don't help, unfortunately.
 
Here's one thing we all can do:

Let's say you happen to be travelling by car or subway, from an area with many bikes to an area with few bikes.

Whenever you do this, try to bring a Bike Share bike with you.

Of course, this is at your own risk. If the subway breaks down, or your car gets stuck in traffic, you may end up owing a large overage fee to Bike Share. If this happens, please consider it your personal donation to help the Bike Share system hire more rebalancers in the future.

Do keep in mind that bikes are not allowed on the subway during rush hour. They clutter the subway car and take up valuable space.
 
bearcat said:
To show my support for the service.
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Cash donations to Bike Share

The city accepts cash donations to various programs, including libraries, community centers, and others. If you donate $20 or more, you get a tax receipt.

Their online donation form doesn't have any option to direct your donation to Bike Share. I guess you could mail a cheque to the donations address. You could write in the memo field that your donation is for Bike Share.

If you try this, please let us know if it works or not, and if they actually deposit your cheque.

I suppose you could also leave some money for Bike Share in your will.

Gift memberships

I vaguely recall that Bike Share used to sell gift cards. I don't see any information about this on their website; maybe they don't sell them anymore.

If you know someone who likes biking: You can ask them if they want you to pay for a Bike Share membership for them, as a gift. If so, you can give them $105 or $120 (plus HST), and they can buy their own annual membership.

Don't forget to warn them that Bike Share sometimes charges overage fees and e-bike usage fees. (The system doesn't advertise these fees so well.)

I think anyone who's at least 16 years old can use Bike Share.

Hopefully your gift recipient will use the e-bikes a lot. I looked at the most recent Bike Share annual financial report. If I recall correctly: The system tends to lose money when annual members ride mechanical bikes. (Perhaps this is due to rebalancing costs.) However, the system makes a small profit when annual members ride e-bikes.
 
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unforgettableid said:
Cash donations to Bike Share

The city accepts cash donations to various programs, including libraries, community centers, and others. If you donate $20 or more, you get a tax receipt.

Their online donation form doesn't have any option to direct your donation to Bike Share. I guess you could mail a cheque to the donations address. You could write in the memo field that your donation is for Bike Share.

If you try this, please let us know if this works or not, and if they actually deposit your cheque.

You can also leave money to Bike Share in your will.

Gift memberships

I vaguely recall that Bike Share used to sell gift cards. I don't see any information about this on their website; maybe they don't sell them anymore.

If you know someone who likes biking: You can ask them if they want you to pay for a Bike Share membership for them, as a gift. If so, you can give them $105 or $120 (plus HST), and they can buy their own annual membership.

Don't forget to warn them that Bike Share sometimes charges overage fees and e-bike usage fees. (The system doesn't advertise these fees so well.)

I think anyone who's at least 16 years old can use Bike Share.

Hopefully your gift recipient will use the e-bikes a lot. I looked at the most recent Bike Share annual financial report. If I recall correctly: The system tends to lose money when annual members ride mechanical bikes. (Perhaps this is due to rebalancing costs.) However, the system makes a small profit when annual members ride e-bikes.
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Thanks for the suggestions. To clarify by "show my support" I also meant show off my support to others with cool Bike Share socks or T-shirt, or a fancy unique membership key.
 
DSC said:
When I want a Bike I want to go from A to B so I am not sure if I would make any effort to go to a dock with more (or less) bikes unless it was VERY close to my desired departure/arrival point. Frankly BikeShare is very cheap so .....
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I think the imbalances tend to be consistent. So people might enjoy free bikeshare rides on their counter-flow commute, or in the morning and not the evening, or vice versa.
 
The Bike Share website is down and their balancing (or lack thereof) is getting worse. Last week I noticed LOTS of full docks and today I walked along Front from St Lawrence to University. There are 6 or 7 quite large dock-banks and ALL slots were full. I was not biking so did not care but ... Now I am home I checked the app and there are (supposedly) 2 or 3 empty docks all along Front but I know that some of these stations have docks that do not work so suspect that of any are empty they are not actually available. NOT GOOD!! EDIT: I emailed their customer service since their website is back again.
 
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bearcat said:
Wanted to share this from Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/torontobiking/comments/1hfva47/bike_share_availability_situation_getting

It really does sound like things have been getting worse with balancing.
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I've spoken to the issue of Bikeshare management on multiple occasions.

Some folks I know defend Justin as being the victim of terrible management at the TPA to whom he answers.

History will get to apportion blame; but lets be clear...........its badly run.

Is that because its boss doesn't know what he's doing or doesn't care?; or because his boss doesn't know what needs doing or doesn't care?

I'm frankly at the point of "I don't care" ........fire all of them.

I have no difficulty believing senior TPA management aren't thoughtful, caring or responsible...... they under-charge for their product (meaning parking spaces for cars) and return less to the City than they could.

That culture infects everything they touch.
 
DSC said:
When I want a Bike I want to go from A to B so I am not sure if I would make any effort to go to a dock with more (or less) bikes unless it was VERY close to my desired departure/arrival point. Frankly BikeShare is very cheap so .....
Click to expand...
You or I might not be interested in performing such a labour, but if the cost of the incentive is low enough such that it is cheaper than what they pay employees to do re-balancing, then I'd argue it's a fiscally prudent strategy. We just need a few people to take them up on it, and it seems like it works in NYC, so why not here?

Related to this, I strongly suspect dangling a free membership in front of people in exchange for making them do exercise will be appealing enough that they would be willing to work for the equivalent of below minimum wage for the privilege. I'll add that I'm only comfortable with exploiting people in this way because I believe providing them with an excuse to exercise that they freely choose is going to be providing them some kind of value.
 
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