BikeDC

via DDOT

“Dear PoPville,

Are there different rules for where (in terms of geographic zones, not sidewalk vs traffic lane) one can ride regular versus electric capital bikeshare bikes in the district?

I used to commute daily as a capital bikeshare member, but now that I live in Van Ness, I only use the system on the rare occasion that I feel like chancing my safety on the bike-lane-less CT Ave corridor. This evening I juuuust missed an L2 home after dinner in Adams Morgan, and so I went to the nearest bikeshare station and picked up the only thing available – an e-bike (my first ever ride on one). I then proceeded to stow my phone away safely (notifications silenced) and ride straight up to the docking station across from Bread Furst. I docked the bike with a happy little green light, walked the rest of the way home, and pulled out my phone – which displayed a several-minute-old push notification from the Lyft app that I was “outside the allowed area” (or some such) and needed to return immediately. (more…)

“Dear PoPville,

The degradation of the Bikeshare system has been building for a couple years now, but the last few months have seen a massive acceleration to that trend to the point this system is becoming completely unusable. There is zero maintenance done by Lyft at this point. Over the last few weeks the majority of the bikes I get are malfunctioning, either with no e-assist from the e-bikes or chain problems on the normal bikes.

And this is when I am lucky to actually find an available bike because there are so many out of commission (not just bikes, but there have been obvious problems with the docks everywhere), (more…)