The Problems with Bike Shares

[DZH22]

With the proliferation of bike shares over the past few years, I wanted to touch on 2 issues in particular that I repeatedly notice, both safety oriented:

1. NOBODY IS WEARING A HELMET!!! This really stands out, as typically over 90% of the people with their own bikes are now using helmets on the roads. Nobody is going to walk around with their own helmets and then rent a bike, and none of the rentals seem to include helmets at the stations.

2. These people without helmets are unfamiliar with our roads! This makes them more likely to end up in weird/dangerous situations, and not have the proper safety gear when bad things inevitably happen.

Now to be fair, I don't have the stats, and I don't really like bikers either in general (unless you're a mountain biker, which is badass). However, I can't help but think this is all a recipe for disaster when I see all these clueless people riding around without helmets. I don't think my personal feelings on bikers are coloring my viewpoint here, and I have pointed it out to others. If helmets are so important, why do we want hundreds or thousands of non-Bostonians confusedly riding our streets without them? Are we trying to get these people killed?

 

[Brattle Loop]

Now to be fair, I don't have the stats, and I don't really like bikers either in general (unless you're a mountain biker, which is badass). However, I can't help but think this is all a recipe for disaster when I see all these clueless people riding around without helmets. I don't think my personal feelings on bikers are coloring my viewpoint here, and I have pointed it out to others. If helmets are so important, why do we want hundreds or thousands of non-Bostonians confusedly riding our streets without them? Are we trying to get these people killed?

I've got to say, I don't really get people who think it's a good idea to ride without helmets. I don't see the point in needlessly risking head trauma that could be easily prevented or mitigated. We mandated use of seatbelts to protect car passengers, we mandate that people under 17 wear helmets to bike, it really doesn't seem like it'd be the death of freedom and liberty to make helmets mandatory (does make me wonder if any health insurers have any conditions relating to helmet-wearing, because it seems to me if I was an insurance company I wouldn't like paying out to people injured in biking accidents because they weren't wearing helmets).

I don't think this is exactly a bike-sharing problem as the title implies, so much as it is that bike-share programs are designed to and have the effect of getting more people to bike, and particularly those without their own bikes (who are possibly therefore less-regular bikers). That said, since bike-shares are how a lot of people get into biking, it's a good area to focus on for efforts to improve bike safety.

 

[JeffDowntown]

The people on bike shares also do not tend to wear any high-visibility clothing. Another flaw in the system.

Also, the target population for bike share often will never purchase a bike, never think of full-time ownership with the accompanying safety tools. The bike share model is designed to fill a transit gap that is different than a full bike commuting model.

 

[DAVE]

This isn't a flaw with bike share. This is a flaw with our bike infrastructure.

 

[HelloBostonHi]

Is it really your problem if other people don't wear helmets? You can wear a helmet if you think it's the right decision for you... To help protect these new riders we can build safer roads where they aren't as likely to be hit by vehicles. https://www.bicycling.com/news/a24110027/bike-helmet-safety/

As for high visibility clothing, you don't need high vis clothing to ride a bike. A front and rear light and reflectors, all of which are included in bikeshare, is more than sufficient. If you, driving a car with headlights, hit a bike with lights and reflectors, that's on you.

Your "problems with bikeshare" sound a lot more like problems with our road design and drivers to me

 

[Blackbird]

I, for one, can’t believe there aren’t bubble wrap dispensers at bike share stations for customers to wrap themselves in.

 

[kmp1284]

Is it really your problem if other people don't wear helmets? You can wear a helmet if you think it's the right decision for you... To help protect these new riders we can build safer roads where they aren't as likely to be hit by vehicles. https://www.bicycling.com/news/a24110027/bike-helmet-safety/

As for high visibility clothing, you don't need high vis clothing to ride a bike. A front and rear light and reflectors, all of which are included in bikeshare, is more than sufficient. If you, driving a car with headlights, hit a bike with lights and reflectors, that's on you.

Your "problems with bikeshare" sound a lot more like problems with our road design and drivers to me.

Being well acquainted with the curmudgeonly and predictable attitudes of right wingers toward bicyclists my assumption is that his beef is with the very presence of bicyclists and bike infrastructure “encroaching” on the roads he pays “taxes” for and that bike share users’ lack of helmets is reason for them to not operate.

 

[DZH22]

Your "problems with bikeshare" sound a lot more like problems with our road design and drivers to me

So on "other roads" people without helmets who fall off their bikes wouldn't get head trauma, and that's just a Boston thing?

I think people are misconstruing my post a bit. Honestly, from the perspective of "I hate cyclists" I don't care at all about the safety of people on bikes. However, from the perspective of loving and promoting my city, I don't think it's a great idea to put a bunch of tourists into harms way by encouraging unsafe behaviors that the locals generally wouldn't partake in. That's not a great reputation for our city if people are getting injured or worse. At the very least, every rental bike should include a helmet with it.

Imagine if rental cars didn't have seatbelts? There's the equivalent, and it sounds patently ridiculous.

 

[DZH22]

Being well acquainted with the curmudgeonly and predictable attitudes of right wingers toward bicyclists my assumption is that his beef is with the very presence of bicyclists and bike infrastructure “encroaching” on the roads he pays “taxes” for and that bike share users’ lack of helmets is reason for them to not operate.

I have already said my piece on other threads in the distant past. This is specific to bikeshares, and is a separate set of issues. Of course, reading comprehension has never been your strong point, but the whole purpose of this thread is limited to the scope of bike sharing. Try to stay on topic.

 

[jass]

With the proliferation of car rentals over the past few years, I wanted to touch on 2 issues in particular that I repeatedly notice, both safety oriented:

1. NOBODY IS WEARING A HELMET!!! Nobody is going to walk around with their own helmets and then rent a car, and none of the rentals seem to include helmets at the depots.

2. These people without helmets are unfamiliar with our roads! This makes them more likely to end up in weird/dangerous situations, and not have the proper safety gear when bad things inevitably happen.

Now to be fair, I don't have the stats, and I don't really like drivers either in general (unless you're a nascar driver with a helmet, which is badass). However, I can't help but think this is all a recipe for disaster when I see all these clueless people driving around without helmets. I don't think my personal feelings on drivers are coloring my viewpoint here, and I have pointed it out to others. If helmets are so important, why do we want hundreds or thousands of non-Bostonians confusedly driving our streets without them? Are we trying to get these people killed?


According to the CDC, car crashes are the second leading cause of traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), making up 17.3% each year, right after falls, which make up just over 35% of TBIs

 

[DZH22]

According to the CDC, car crashes are the second leading cause of traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), making up 17.3% each year, right after falls, which make up just over 35% of TBIs

Did you know that more people also die on earth than in space? Does that mean we'd be safer floating in space?

If you took everybody in the United States, how much time per year does the average person spend in a car, compared to on a bike? It sounds like the same strange argument of "more likely to die in a car than a plane." It's like, yeah, if I spend 300-500 hours per year in a car, and 0-10 per year in a plane, what are we really comparing? The first activity could be 1/50th as dangerous and I'd still be as likely to have the same bad outcome if I'm doing that activity 50x more than the other.

I'd also assume that if somebody is in a car every day of the year, and on a bike one day of the year, they'd probably be more likely to run into an issue in the every-day scenario. In that case, the bike scenario would have to be at least 365x more dangerous for the annual statistics to be equivalent. Theoretically, it could be 182.5x more dangerous and you could point to statistics showing it's "twice as safe" by annual outcomes, if we're comparing one ride per year on a bike to 365 rides per year in a car.

Are helmets important, or aren't they? Do we care about safety, or only selectively? (forced car seats for kids up to about 10 years old, mandatory seatbelt laws, forcing vaccinations on kids and healthy adults for something that mainly kills old people, etc) Apparently tourists weaving in and out of traffic on unfamiliar roads without helmets is A-OK. Nobody else finds this hypocritical, in the general climate of 2022? We have safe spaces for feelings, but don't care about safe spaces for people's brains as long as they don't own the bicycle?

Does everybody here just hate tourists that much? I really don't get it. A person on this site who clearly dislikes bikers shouldn't simultaneously be the same person who apparently cares the most about the casual users' general well-being in a practical sense. I'm starting to think maybe we do need a helmet law, which would be the bicycle version of the seatbelt law. For regular riders it would make no difference, but for casuals/tourists it would force these bikes to include them as part of the rental.

 

[Brattle Loop]

Are helmets important, or aren't they? Do we care about safety, or only selectively? (forced car seats for kids up to about 10 years old, mandatory seatbelt laws, forcing vaccinations on kids and healthy adults for something that mainly kills old people, etc) Apparently tourists weaving in and out of traffic on unfamiliar roads without helmets is A-OK. Nobody else finds this hypocritical, in the general climate of 2022? We have safe spaces for feelings, but don't care about safe spaces for people's brains as long as they don't own the bicycle?

All safety regulations are selective to some degree, because they represent trade-offs between limitations on liberty, economic and other costs, effectiveness at achieving their desired goals, and the political willpower to make trades to achieve those goals. (For an illustration, while I'd say it's generally considered a widely-appropriate goal to reduce deaths and injuries from automobile accidents, limiting all vehicles to, say, 5 miles per hour would probably be effective at doing so, at an atrocious cost to transportation flexibility and freedom.) It's not hypocritical at all to support some safety regulations while not supporting others, at least to the extent that such can be supported by reasonable arguments and evidence. (In this example, one could simultaneously oppose a mandatory helmet law on, say, freedom-of-choice grounds, while also supporting a mandatory seatbelt law on the basis that passengers aren't in control of the vehicle and thus don't get to choose whether the vehicle is operated safely.)

Does everybody here just hate tourists that much? I really don't get it. A person on this site who clearly dislikes bikers shouldn't simultaneously be the same person who apparently cares the most about the casual users' general well-being in a practical sense. I'm starting to think maybe we do need a helmet law, which would be the bicycle version of the seatbelt law. For regular riders it would make no difference, but for casuals/tourists it would force these bikes to include them as part of the rental.

I noted earlier in the thread that, personally, I think people should wear helmets and I think not doing so is taking unnecessary risk (but people's risk tolerance will vary, and that's not the end of the world to the extent that it doesn't impact others. I'll reserve judgment on the merits of a helmet law, and the specific interplay with bike-sharing, until such time as there's some numbers to engage with rather than anecdotal evidence. I'll also point out that framing the argument with anti-bike sentiments isn't helpful; while it's entirely possible to be more inclined to notice something in a context you dislike and to make a valid point about it, it's also easy to ignore and undermine the argument if it can be framed as (perceived or real) reflexive opposition. (To put it another way, I don't think people hate tourists or that they necessarily disagree with all your points - I know I think there's some points at least worth some discussion and I hope I've added something to that - but I do think that the framing has helped shape the response in a way that isn't particularly related to the substance of the issue.)

 

[lexicon506]

I don't think it's a great idea to put a bunch of tourists into harms way by encouraging unsafe behaviors that the locals generally wouldn't partake in.

The vast majority of bikeshare users are locals, not tourists.

 

[Blackbird]

Jokes aside, I was lucky in college to get a co-op in Germany. While there, I’d bike to work occasionally if the weather was nice. I would always be joined by lots of other bikers and the majority wouldn’t wear helmets.

Look, too, at photos of people biking in Amsterdam or Copenhagen and you’ll see plenty helmet-less bikers. If the streets, intersections, and paths are truly safe then it’s not something you really need to worry about.

Granted, I’m fully aware that our streets and intersections are NOT as safe as in Europe. So I get the concern. My arguments then would be that having a bunch of bike renters share rented helmets as well would be unhygienic. Just giving them helmets to keep every time they ride would be expensive. And then of course you’ll have people who just don’t want to wear one.

Really we should just focus on making our biking infrastructure safe enough where there’s no question that riders will be fine without a helmet. We have a LOONG way to go before we’re there, though.

 

[lainpimicaja]

There has been sooooo much research that counters the conception that helmets (and other biking apparel) = cycling safety, and the majority of evidence (not people shaking fists at clouds) I've seen points to better street design, getting a greater diversity of people riding, and getting more people out there riding as more significant determinants of overall road safety.

If you're interested in this subject, I'd recommend reading summaries or direct findings from studies like this one (nice summary here), this one, which actually calls out Boston as a good city for not using scare tactics when it comes to helmet usage (decent summary write-up in SB here), or this one that analyses motorists interactions with cyclists wearing different safety apparel (surprise, motorists by and large don't care). There is much more out there, too.

If you want to say you're making streets safer without actually doing it, a great way to do that is by passing a mandatory helmet usage law. Bikeshare is a key component of Boston (and many cities') cycling ecosystem, and it's becoming a much more common way for folks to get around in an affordable, environmentally friendly way, so better to support it whole-heartedly than take up the punitive policy stance.

 

[jass]

how much time per year does the average person spend in a car, compared to on a bike?

I'd also assume that if somebody is in a car every day of the year, and on a bike one day of the year, they'd probably be more likely to run into an issue in the every-day scenario.

Exactly.

Thats why I dont understand why youre not lobbying for car helmets?

Dont you care about safety?

NASCAR drivers wear them.

 

[goody]

This isn't a flaw with bike share. This is a flaw with our bike infrastructure.

Bingo. This is were one inserts the perennial reference to The Netherlands or Copenhagen. The Dutch cycle everywhere all the time without helmets. Amsterdam has more bikes than people and bikes are the most utilized mode of transportation in the city. This wasnt always the case and isn't coincidence. Nor, I would argue, is it mostly climate or topography (though they help). The Dutch and more recently the Danes have created a culture supported by infrastructure that makes it safe for all types of people to bike without helmets. They have separated bike lanes, they use different colored asphalt and pavers to indicate bike lanes and shared spaces, they have bike traffic signals, among other measures. This fundamental infrastructure isn't fragmented but is standard on all streets and roads. Infrastructure improves safety which in turn increases ridership of people further out on the innovation/risk adoption curve. Once a place hits a certain level of 'mass adoption' cyclists are no longer "others" but every driver is also a cyclist when not driving and suddenly you have a culture where drivers become much more aware of and sympathetic to cyclists, which than further improves safety.

 

[sneijder]

What if we told car drivers this: if we mandate blue bikers use helmets, all of a sudden the inconvenience of having to own/carry/wear a helmet & wear high-vis clothing pushes all of those people off bikes and into ubers. Then, because traffic congestion is non-linearly related to number of cars on the road (i.e. congestion increases exponentially when # of cars increase), the roads become so clogged and your car commute takes twice as long. Now all of a sudden they aren't so "concerned" about blue bikers' safety.

 

[dshoost88]

@DZH22 , here I am opening the thread you created thinking, “Oh, interesting: this should be a constructive conversation about the problems with bike share and ways to solve them.” And, instead, I found a fuss fest.

First of all, the two ‘problems’ you listed with bike share aren’t bike share problems. They’re behavioral characteristics. But even so, they are sweeping generalizations that are actually not true. I’ve ridden a blue bike several times before, helmetless; I dare you to find me a Bostonian more familiar with all modes and route options in Boston’s Blue Bike service area than I am.

Secondly, erase the word “biker” from your brain when this topic comes to mind. You are describing a person that rides a bike. Just as there are people that drive cars or people that ride transit, there are people that ride bikes, and in 3,000,000 circumstances people rode Blue Bikes in 2022–myself included.

Thirdly, transportation planners and municipal decision-makers encourage bike share not because they want people to be killed, but because they want to make our communities better places. Better because mode shift to riding a bike reduces vehicular traffic congestion, idling vehicles, noxious gas emissions, noise pollution, and sedentary lifestyles. Better because riding a bike boosts public health outcomes, personal wellness, awareness of your local surroundings, and frequency of visiting small businesses. Better because bike infrastructure costs less to build, is more equitable for persons that ride bikes, is a solution for last mile connectivity to higher volume transit connections, promotes higher throughput of people in a constrained geography, and correlates with higher property values/assessments, which in turn is excellent for the local tax base.

We want people to enjoy our communities and have options to enjoy them. Bike share is a variable in that equation.

You want to know some real problems with bike share?
- People that dehumanize the lived experience of people that ride bikes, presumably because of some sort of false sense of superiority because of your preferred mode of transportation. That shit needs to stop—actually hopping on a bicycle once in a while would be an excellent place to start.
- Regional shared use path connectivity. We know the opportunities to close these gaps, but funding, design, and public buy-in continue to be a struggle—especially at the municipal levels.
- Service coverage: we need more bikes and more docks to park them at in more places.
- Operating costs. While federal aid funds can be leveraged to pay for capital costs of growing bike share (I.e. the bikes and docks), there is currently no color of federal aid to cover operating costs. The expectation is that user fees, sponsorships, and municipal funding will make up the operating cost gaps. As a consequence, regional adoption/implementation of bike share expansion is limited by municipalities’ willingness to commit to those costs.
- User cost: although affordable to many, there are still many people in bike share service areas that can neither afford to purchase their own bike nor afford to get a bike share membership. Lowering these costs (or erasing them) would encourage more ridership.
- Safety: I’ll acknowledge that a lot of people do not know how to ride a bike, including people that ride bikes. This makes it unsafe for people using this mode and all other modes. Transportation education is critical. Until then, this will always be a problem for persons that use bike share.
- Safety: I’ll acknowledge that a lot of people do not know how to drive a car, including people that drive cars. This makes it unsafe for people using this mode and all other modes. Transportation education is critical. Until then, this will always be a problem for persons that use bike share.

There are a ton of other bike share problems you and I could list off, but I’m gonna stop there. I am far more interested in the constructive, equitable, and implementable solutions we can implement to solve these problems.

 

[greenlinetobrooklyn]

- People that dehumanize the lived experience of people that ride bikes, presumably because of some sort of false sense of superiority because of your preferred mode of transportation. That shit needs to stop—actually hopping on a bicycle once in a while would be an excellent place to start.

I've ridden my bike around the city as my primary commuter for ~15 years. Hi-vis and a helmet would never have prevented the multiple times a car has hit me, and hi-vis and a helmet didn't prevent or aleviate any of my injuries.

If the lack of hi-vis and helmets was such an issue for ride share users, wouldn't it be brought up? When Hubway first started in Boston, my first thought and fear was "Holy shit drunk idiots on Boylston after leaving the bar will get on a hubway and get themselves killed!" It feels like people with an agenda against bikes bring up these arguments about bikers putting themselves in danger because they're unfamiliar with the infrastructure or don't have the proper safety gear never have any data to back the claims up.

So on "other roads" people without helmets who fall off their bikes wouldn't get head trauma, and that's just a Boston thing?

This doesn't happen, and when it does it's probably as common as a rock getting shot up from a wheel on the freeway, into an open window killing the driver.