As bike-share’s growing popularity in the United
States spurs private investment, cities that have considered starting their own
municipal programs are beginning to ask: Why bother trying to round up millions
of dollars when a private company will come in and do it for free. Following
success in China, private firms in the last few months have deployed masses of
brightly colored bikes ready to zip around American cities, pushing their way
into a market that until now has been dominated by city-subsidized
programs.
Unlike existing publicly financed bike-share programs, with bikes that are
docked at stations, the neon green, orange and yellow bikes from competing
companies are dockless — picked up and dropped off wherever a user likes.
Riders use an app on their phone to find available bikes and unlock them for
about $1 a half-hour, a cheaper walk-up price than most existing programs offer.
The entrance of dockless biking into the U.S. market has rocked a bike-share
sector that has long relied on city workers’ help to assemble federal grants,
city funds and advertising and sponsorships in order to lure bike-share
operators. But those endeavors may be nearing an end. [pew]
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