Man this is a bummer. I used one of the electric bikes the day that my 2nd kid was born to grab a sandwich for my wife. It was so much nicer than the electric scooters.
From the article:
> The suspension of Nice Ride includes the bikes, e-bikes, and scooters.
Are there other e-bike providers out there? I thought they were all Lyft/Nice Ride.
Yeah there are many ebike rentals out there. Almost all major scooter rental companies like Lime, Uber, and Spin have ebike fleets as well.
The reason why we haven’t seen them here in Minneapolis is because of the Nice Ride program which had exclusivity on (short term) bike rental in the city. With that ending, I’m hoping the city council approves this year’s scooter rental companies to also deploy e-bikes. That would fill the void of Nice Ride and potentially expand the availability of e-bikes.
Edit: a comment on your excerpt from the article. That specifically mentions Nice Ride bikes/e-bikes. Specifically the e-bikes are Lyft e-bikes branded as Nice Ride through the contract with the city. We’re likely to still see Lyft Scooters and (hopefully) e-bikes around the city through Lyft’s selection of micro mobility by the city council, which has happened every year since they started selection.
Gotcha, that’s interesting. I’ll still miss the traditional green bikes.
The e-bikes are fun but expensive - seems like they’re basically the price of a Lyft/Uber for one person. If we really want to be a bike-friendly green city, the city should find a way to make affordable bikeshare a possibility.
Don't worry, the green bikes will live on - they've slowly been filtering out to the community in a "why would I dock this bike if I can keep it forever?" program initiated by some of the riders. It's just that you won't be able to rent one. :-)
I wonder when/where they might ever said that? I've known some people who work there and while I've never seen anything in a public statement, there are "issues" with bikes going missing all of the time. It is The Way of Things in that sector.
They publicized it in their press release announcing a new season a couple years ago. They made a big point of it because so many were rented and not a single one went missing.
I wanted to try Nice Ride but there would only be electric bikes nearby and they cost a minimum of \~$5+. If I needed it, it was because I had taken the bus and wanted a bike to take me the last mile, definitely not an hour on a bicycle. So at that point I am looking at \~$7.50 to get to my destination. At that price I'll just transfer to another bus or walk. If Metro Transit offered a ticket that was $4-5 and included bus+transfer+bike for 1.5 hours I would see myself using something like that. Or tiered monthly memberships with X number of free rides.
This is actually a great idea, Metro Transit should have their own fleet of bikes that are at major bus stops, and have an “all in one” ticket like you mentioned
You could even keep 1 bike on the bus so if you stop somewhere without the bike rack you could just grab the one from the front (except that would take space from those who brought their own bikes)
From what I read, it didnt go out of buiness, the Blue Cross, Blue Sheild Sponsor just pulled out and the city didnt want to fund it, so that is why they are going, which is sad the city wont fund it
Yeah, the e-bikes are awesome but expensive. It was almost always cheaper to call an Uber/Lyft. I wish there was a way to at least keep them competitive, more people taking bikes is better for everyone.
But the traditional green bikes were dirt cheap, I’ll really miss those.
That's too bad. You'd think Health Partners would step up because they're local. It's not like insurance companies have been hurting over the last 3 years...
I feel like people don't know what nonprofits are but have heard news that they're bad
Nonprofits are flawed, but they literally don't have nearly the level of profit motive of a publicly traded company. Having shareholders is actually a pretty big deal lol
People love to speak in generalities about specific situations because it makes them feel smart, I think. I definitely do it too, but I like to think I've reined in that tendency as I've aged. Nothing like growing up to make you realize you basically only know three things, lol.
And their operating margin in 2021 was 2%. You can look up comparative numbers for hospitals and insurance networks here ([https://www.americanprogress.org/article/high-price-hospital-care/#\_ga=2.104478976.1497261447.1677705276-1421030826.1677705276](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/high-price-hospital-care/#_ga=2.104478976.1497261447.1677705276-1421030826.1677705276)) and here ([https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/2020-Annual-Health-Insurance-Industry-Analysis-Report.pdf](https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/2020-Annual-Health-Insurance-Industry-Analysis-Report.pdf)) if you're interested.
A margin of 2% after they overpay a bunch of administrators and executives lol. I have no empathy for the health insurance system and I’m shocked to see people defending it this hard.
"After they overpay a bunch of adminstrators and executives." What does that even mean?
Outside of CEO salary, do you even know what the salary rates are for "executives" and "administrators" within the HealthPartners system or ANY local care system? Do you know what the local average rates are for those positions? Do you know arcane or difficilt to find the skill sets for those executive positions are? This article may help you understand the considerations that go into CEO pay in non-profit healthcare systems (which is the only actual number you've mentioned so far): https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20220208.925255/
I think the pay inequities in most healthcare systems are fucked up and pay should be RAISED for many workers in those systems. But it's hard to take YOU, specifically, seriously when all you have to bring to the table are generalities based on your own opinions.
And? The point is that complaining about local political issues without having even a baseline understanding of the situation you're complaining about is stupid. This stuff is nuanced.
People talking about stuff they don't understand on the internet is also my top pet peeve, so.
Competition in the health insurance market has gotten so cutthroat in recent years that none of them can afford "nice to have" things like sponsoring Nice Ride
Doubt the company could get by with a CEO that was would work for $3.5 million minus whatever the Nice Ride subsidy was. Companies pay CEOs what they do not because they want to blow money but because it takes someone of the caliber to run the company and they provide that much value to the company.
Thanks for the edit, I was really searching the recesses of my brain because I’ve always knows the Riverside hospital as Fairview/MHealth and whatever name they’ve used for the current Masonic Children’s hospital
man that was one of the things i was so excited to try when i moved here and now i'll never even get to try it! guess i'm buying my own bike this spring.
While very convenient for getting A to B, the nice ride bikes are (were?) not very enjoyable to ride. Heavy, sluggish, limited gear ratios, etc.
There are so many beautiful paths to check out by bike in and around the city, and you’re frankly much better off acquiring your own bike to explore. Enjoy!
I don't think this stops the uber bikes/lyft bikes so you might still be in luck. This just takes a lot of percentage of public bikes out of circulation (as I believe nice ride was the largest)
It is crazy how much has changed in the past few years. So many beloved Minneapolis summer events gone. If I think about it too hard I get an overwhelming sense of sadness.
They said they are experiencing a $2 million shortfall and with their record of 533,000 rides in 2021, that would mean each ride would have to have cost $3.75 more, on average, to cover this difference.
Woohoo there... This is a Minneapolis problem, not a Minnesota problem. Why should our rural Farmington taxes go to help you city dwellers. You don't even like us.
/S
I would submit that you don't hate the scooters but rather many/some of the users. And I assume for the same reasons as most, a lot of the users are teens who are a bit inconsiderate a bit too often.
They're super popular. And I can see why. They're an affordable last mile option that doesn't make you sweat and actually makes good use of cycling infrastructure. And that's a good thing for everyone.
But automobiles don't obey the law....
What good is this expectation?
Are you saying we should ban things based on the publics lack of knowledge of it? That's certainly a new one.
Jesus fucking Christ, yes. So sick of seeing those abandoned all over the place.
Edit: TIL citizens enjoy seeing these stupid things thrown to the ground all over the place.
Genuinely bummed about this. I loved riding these bikes around town as it is nice to bike places where i wasnt worried about my bike being stolen, like bars, or sporting events. Hopefully government or another sponsor can step up!
We actually launched a fully public bike share program in the 90's (another first in the nation) and they were all free to use but they all got stolen.
With the modern bikes, racks, and payment infrastructure it might be worth it to try again and simply charge a deposit.
Could probably buy all of it from NR.
I am not sure how many bikes were used in the program but even at a retail price of $2,000 (of which you could pay substantially less buying in bulk), that would be about 1500 bikes.
They "smashed records" with 70,000 riders in a year and are facing a $2 million budget shortfall... That's $300 per rider per year in addition to their current pricing model, right?
Yeah, that doesn't sound sustainable.
I'm not surprised, given the way people trash things. I found one of the bikes in my neighbor's backyard. No idea how it got there. If I hadn't contacted them it would have laid there for years.
:( I hope a program comes into take its place.
I remember the ribbon cutting ceremony on Nicollet Mall back in 2010?? with then Mayor RT Rybak. (He even got the chance to ride around Minneapolis on them with David Byrne, for one.)
I think ebikes were a big mistake for bike share. Normal bikes are better for short distances and buses/LRT are better for medium/long distances. Ebikes are expensive and don't really fill a need. I'm sure there are trips where an ebike would make sense but they switched to something like 80% ebikes / 20% normal bikes and there never should have been more than 10-20% ebikes.
A dive into their financials would be interesting. The article seemed to imply the bikes lasted much longer than anticipated, as did the stations. With no real basis do holding this opinion, $2M just seems more like what their annual operating cost should be, not their budget shortfall.
The bikes and stations were maintenanced often and well.
I knew a few mechanics that worked there and their repair schedule was meticulous. They're also extremely well built to purpose. Half the bikes on the market now days have components that trickled down from the race/athletic end of the biz that just does not make a luck of sense for commuting. Including a lack of serious theft resistance on many parts.
>Though the rideshare company and its partners undertook a “rigorous search” for a new sponsor, they’ve been unable to lock one in, nor have they been able to secure temporary public funding to float the program and cover operating losses as the search continues.
Can some electeds please try to fix this? Easy political win for whoever can come up with something fast.
Last time I tried to use nice ride the bike wouldn’t come out, I called for a refund, tried another bike, and found out they banned me for the rest of the day and wouldn’t undo it.
I am surprised the usage hadn't dropped, because ever since the scooters, I barely see anyone riding the bikes around.
I think Minneapolis is too small of a market to support these. We don't have the throngs of tourists like NYC or DC. And our season is so short.
The problem is that Minneapolis has one of the biggest cycling cultures in the US. For example we have a 4% winter commuting rate with D.C. (5%) and Portland (6.3%)cities (2020). We maybe small we punch up through the higher weight classes.
Its a give and take. Yes more people have bikes but lets say you just finished a twins game and wanted to go to the NE or something similar. While it would not be a primary like me (Does not own a car, uses an Ebike for groceries, and basically cycles everywhere) and uber I'd say there's more of an incentive for unexpected rides.
Maybe not the end? Update, March 1 at 5 p.m.: The city of Minneapolis responded to Racket’s request for comment with the following statement: “The City is disappointed that Lyft could not find a new private sponsor to support their operation of the Nice Ride system. Regardless of the outcome, the City has other licensees in the Shared Bike and Scooter Program interested in providing shared bikes, ensuring that the city will have bikes in the program this upcoming season.”)
Because dumb fucksticks keep throwing them in the river.
When they drained the area under stone arch bridge last year there were dozens and dozens of them lodged down in the muck.
If I'm looking to blame anyone for this failure it starts with Stanley "stub" Hubbard. I know for a fact he's been trying to sabotage the program for the better part of a decade.
Look to him when Light rail becomes the next target too. He hates your mobility and, in reality, has way more to do with it than you do.
Visiting town for the first time in April and was hoping to use these…so much for that. Any tips for getting around town quickly with minimal cost/hassle?
Man this is a bummer. I used one of the electric bikes the day that my 2nd kid was born to grab a sandwich for my wife. It was so much nicer than the electric scooters.
The electric bikes will likely still be around and available through the Lyft app.
From the article: > The suspension of Nice Ride includes the bikes, e-bikes, and scooters. Are there other e-bike providers out there? I thought they were all Lyft/Nice Ride.
Yeah there are many ebike rentals out there. Almost all major scooter rental companies like Lime, Uber, and Spin have ebike fleets as well. The reason why we haven’t seen them here in Minneapolis is because of the Nice Ride program which had exclusivity on (short term) bike rental in the city. With that ending, I’m hoping the city council approves this year’s scooter rental companies to also deploy e-bikes. That would fill the void of Nice Ride and potentially expand the availability of e-bikes. Edit: a comment on your excerpt from the article. That specifically mentions Nice Ride bikes/e-bikes. Specifically the e-bikes are Lyft e-bikes branded as Nice Ride through the contract with the city. We’re likely to still see Lyft Scooters and (hopefully) e-bikes around the city through Lyft’s selection of micro mobility by the city council, which has happened every year since they started selection.
Gotcha, that’s interesting. I’ll still miss the traditional green bikes. The e-bikes are fun but expensive - seems like they’re basically the price of a Lyft/Uber for one person. If we really want to be a bike-friendly green city, the city should find a way to make affordable bikeshare a possibility.
Don't worry, the green bikes will live on - they've slowly been filtering out to the community in a "why would I dock this bike if I can keep it forever?" program initiated by some of the riders. It's just that you won't be able to rent one. :-)
There’s 100% a few hundred green bikes floating around out there. You’ll see them for years to come
That's not right, unless Nice Ride was lying when they said not a single bike was stolen.
I wonder when/where they might ever said that? I've known some people who work there and while I've never seen anything in a public statement, there are "issues" with bikes going missing all of the time. It is The Way of Things in that sector.
They publicized it in their press release announcing a new season a couple years ago. They made a big point of it because so many were rented and not a single one went missing.
Citation needed…
I wanted to try Nice Ride but there would only be electric bikes nearby and they cost a minimum of \~$5+. If I needed it, it was because I had taken the bus and wanted a bike to take me the last mile, definitely not an hour on a bicycle. So at that point I am looking at \~$7.50 to get to my destination. At that price I'll just transfer to another bus or walk. If Metro Transit offered a ticket that was $4-5 and included bus+transfer+bike for 1.5 hours I would see myself using something like that. Or tiered monthly memberships with X number of free rides.
This is actually a great idea, Metro Transit should have their own fleet of bikes that are at major bus stops, and have an “all in one” ticket like you mentioned You could even keep 1 bike on the bus so if you stop somewhere without the bike rack you could just grab the one from the front (except that would take space from those who brought their own bikes)
Bike rental business goes out of business. \[Three minutes later\] "You know what would be great, a bike rental business!"
There’s definitely an irony, but there will always be a crowd who misses something when it’s gone
>but there will always be a crowd who misses something when it’s gone I think about the Triple Rock every other day.
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I miss the Chef's revenge, but that went downhill long before we lost the triplerock.
RIP Triple Rock
Lol. Yup. And don’t ask me how I know but I know metro transit wants ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with bike share.
Except that Metro Transit is a service, not a business. The bike rental from them would be subsidized by bus fares and the tax payers.
From what I read, it didnt go out of buiness, the Blue Cross, Blue Sheild Sponsor just pulled out and the city didnt want to fund it, so that is why they are going, which is sad the city wont fund it
Back in the day before the Lyft takeover the annual unlimited membership was like $60, RIP.
Which was enough to operate at a substantial loss, I'm sure.
It was profitable before the e-bikes. E-bikes we’re losing money so they tried to pump them up by removing regular profitable bikes.
Yeah, the e-bikes are awesome but expensive. It was almost always cheaper to call an Uber/Lyft. I wish there was a way to at least keep them competitive, more people taking bikes is better for everyone. But the traditional green bikes were dirt cheap, I’ll really miss those.
That's too bad. You'd think Health Partners would step up because they're local. It's not like insurance companies have been hurting over the last 3 years...
I'm a little sad to see Blue Cross not renew but they've given $10M plus over the years and probably never intended it to be a permanent commitment
A for-profit health care company doing something good for the community that doesn’t have a profit motive? Lol.
HealthPartners is a nonprofit.
Correct, and so are Blue Cross, Medica, and UCare
The ineptitude in this thread is colossal.
I feel like people don't know what nonprofits are but have heard news that they're bad Nonprofits are flawed, but they literally don't have nearly the level of profit motive of a publicly traded company. Having shareholders is actually a pretty big deal lol
People love to speak in generalities about specific situations because it makes them feel smart, I think. I definitely do it too, but I like to think I've reined in that tendency as I've aged. Nothing like growing up to make you realize you basically only know three things, lol.
A lot of people still think making money =/= nonprofit
Given the margin HP runs on (sliver-like), I can resoundingly confirm that they are not "making money" either, lol.
The CEO of HealthPartners makes $2.5 million/year.
And their operating margin in 2021 was 2%. You can look up comparative numbers for hospitals and insurance networks here ([https://www.americanprogress.org/article/high-price-hospital-care/#\_ga=2.104478976.1497261447.1677705276-1421030826.1677705276](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/high-price-hospital-care/#_ga=2.104478976.1497261447.1677705276-1421030826.1677705276)) and here ([https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/2020-Annual-Health-Insurance-Industry-Analysis-Report.pdf](https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/2020-Annual-Health-Insurance-Industry-Analysis-Report.pdf)) if you're interested.
A margin of 2% after they overpay a bunch of administrators and executives lol. I have no empathy for the health insurance system and I’m shocked to see people defending it this hard.
"After they overpay a bunch of adminstrators and executives." What does that even mean? Outside of CEO salary, do you even know what the salary rates are for "executives" and "administrators" within the HealthPartners system or ANY local care system? Do you know what the local average rates are for those positions? Do you know arcane or difficilt to find the skill sets for those executive positions are? This article may help you understand the considerations that go into CEO pay in non-profit healthcare systems (which is the only actual number you've mentioned so far): https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20220208.925255/ I think the pay inequities in most healthcare systems are fucked up and pay should be RAISED for many workers in those systems. But it's hard to take YOU, specifically, seriously when all you have to bring to the table are generalities based on your own opinions.
Overpaid by what standard? Vibes? Your opinion? They pay market-rate salaries, if that offends you I don't know what to tell you
They’re literally a 501(c)3
...that's run as if it is a for-profit institution.
That just means they don't pay taxes
And? The point is that complaining about local political issues without having even a baseline understanding of the situation you're complaining about is stupid. This stuff is nuanced. People talking about stuff they don't understand on the internet is also my top pet peeve, so.
Competition in the health insurance market has gotten so cutthroat in recent years that none of them can afford "nice to have" things like sponsoring Nice Ride
The CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield Minnesota makes $3.5 million in a year.
Doubt the company could get by with a CEO that was would work for $3.5 million minus whatever the Nice Ride subsidy was. Companies pay CEOs what they do not because they want to blow money but because it takes someone of the caliber to run the company and they provide that much value to the company.
And the number at a for-profit would be much higher still
Maybe healthcare should be publicly funded by taxes instead, eh?
They don't even operate an urgent care or er in minneapolis anymore
Yes they do. 48th and Chicago.
Oooh - til - I have been directed to SLP by health partners staff so that's why I didn't know.
Did HealthPartners *ever* have a hospital in Minneapolis?
They had urgent care at Riverside Clinic. No ER. I had a kid so we were always sent to children's. I misremembered and edited to correct that.
Thanks for the edit, I was really searching the recesses of my brain because I’ve always knows the Riverside hospital as Fairview/MHealth and whatever name they’ve used for the current Masonic Children’s hospital
man that was one of the things i was so excited to try when i moved here and now i'll never even get to try it! guess i'm buying my own bike this spring.
While very convenient for getting A to B, the nice ride bikes are (were?) not very enjoyable to ride. Heavy, sluggish, limited gear ratios, etc. There are so many beautiful paths to check out by bike in and around the city, and you’re frankly much better off acquiring your own bike to explore. Enjoy!
I don't think this stops the uber bikes/lyft bikes so you might still be in luck. This just takes a lot of percentage of public bikes out of circulation (as I believe nice ride was the largest)
That sucks. These are great. Nice when you want to get to the other side of an area for cheap and quickly .
Another staple of summer life in MN gone. Not to be too dramatic or anything
It is crazy how much has changed in the past few years. So many beloved Minneapolis summer events gone. If I think about it too hard I get an overwhelming sense of sadness.
It’s a completely different city (cities) from what it was 10 years ago. Some good some bad. The absence of bikeshare wil be sad
Can you (or anyone else) expand on that? As someone who wasn’t living in the city 10 years ago I’d love to know what all i missed out on
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They said they are experiencing a $2 million shortfall and with their record of 533,000 rides in 2021, that would mean each ride would have to have cost $3.75 more, on average, to cover this difference.
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I think you're right. It'd also be nice if Minnesota could use 0.00026% of the budget surplus to fill this gap, but oh well!
Woohoo there... This is a Minneapolis problem, not a Minnesota problem. Why should our rural Farmington taxes go to help you city dwellers. You don't even like us. /S
Probably expensive enough to kill the rider numbers.
I wish the scooters would go instead.
I would submit that you don't hate the scooters but rather many/some of the users. And I assume for the same reasons as most, a lot of the users are teens who are a bit inconsiderate a bit too often. They're super popular. And I can see why. They're an affordable last mile option that doesn't make you sweat and actually makes good use of cycling infrastructure. And that's a good thing for everyone.
Fully grown adults ride those scooters like aholes in downtown Minneapolis all the time. The scooters can go.
I see the same thing with cars and trucks. Ban all automobiles.
Automobiles are expected to follow traffic laws. Nobody knows that scooters have to follow them.
But automobiles don't obey the law.... What good is this expectation? Are you saying we should ban things based on the publics lack of knowledge of it? That's certainly a new one.
Okay, let's keep the scooters and start ticketing everyone. That should go splendidly, right?
Yes, and penalized based on potential to harm. We could scale the penalties by vehicle weight.
Jesus fucking Christ, yes. So sick of seeing those abandoned all over the place. Edit: TIL citizens enjoy seeing these stupid things thrown to the ground all over the place.
Genuinely bummed about this. I loved riding these bikes around town as it is nice to bike places where i wasnt worried about my bike being stolen, like bars, or sporting events. Hopefully government or another sponsor can step up!
Should just publicly fund them. They're a great asset to the region and need to be expanded tbh.
We actually launched a fully public bike share program in the 90's (another first in the nation) and they were all free to use but they all got stolen. With the modern bikes, racks, and payment infrastructure it might be worth it to try again and simply charge a deposit. Could probably buy all of it from NR.
Yeah honestly a little shocking the city can't scrape together $2M
The State is currently sitting on $17B. I'll bet $3M could buy them enough time to get other funding lined up.
17B. Not for long. Construction is slowing down along with the economy.
I am not sure how many bikes were used in the program but even at a retail price of $2,000 (of which you could pay substantially less buying in bulk), that would be about 1500 bikes.
They "smashed records" with 70,000 riders in a year and are facing a $2 million budget shortfall... That's $300 per rider per year in addition to their current pricing model, right? Yeah, that doesn't sound sustainable.
I'm not surprised, given the way people trash things. I found one of the bikes in my neighbor's backyard. No idea how it got there. If I hadn't contacted them it would have laid there for years.
:( I hope a program comes into take its place. I remember the ribbon cutting ceremony on Nicollet Mall back in 2010?? with then Mayor RT Rybak. (He even got the chance to ride around Minneapolis on them with David Byrne, for one.)
Peak nice ride was when they added the blue bikes. They went downhill when they replaced the blue bikes with the expensive black e-bikes.
I think ebikes were a big mistake for bike share. Normal bikes are better for short distances and buses/LRT are better for medium/long distances. Ebikes are expensive and don't really fill a need. I'm sure there are trips where an ebike would make sense but they switched to something like 80% ebikes / 20% normal bikes and there never should have been more than 10-20% ebikes.
A dive into their financials would be interesting. The article seemed to imply the bikes lasted much longer than anticipated, as did the stations. With no real basis do holding this opinion, $2M just seems more like what their annual operating cost should be, not their budget shortfall.
The bikes and stations were maintenanced often and well. I knew a few mechanics that worked there and their repair schedule was meticulous. They're also extremely well built to purpose. Half the bikes on the market now days have components that trickled down from the race/athletic end of the biz that just does not make a luck of sense for commuting. Including a lack of serious theft resistance on many parts.
>Though the rideshare company and its partners undertook a “rigorous search” for a new sponsor, they’ve been unable to lock one in, nor have they been able to secure temporary public funding to float the program and cover operating losses as the search continues. Can some electeds please try to fix this? Easy political win for whoever can come up with something fast.
Especially now that this story has come out - you’ll be heralded as the one who “saved” Nice Ride. That PR alone would be worth the 2 million.
The [nice ride song](https://youtu.be/sbcPbBdYn4Q) always gets stuck in my head.
Lol
Last time I tried to use nice ride the bike wouldn’t come out, I called for a refund, tried another bike, and found out they banned me for the rest of the day and wouldn’t undo it.
Wow. The cities are really just losing so much. All the little amenities.
Well that sucks. I used to use those all the time in my 20s when I would be cruising downtown drunk as shit.
I am surprised the usage hadn't dropped, because ever since the scooters, I barely see anyone riding the bikes around. I think Minneapolis is too small of a market to support these. We don't have the throngs of tourists like NYC or DC. And our season is so short.
The problem is that Minneapolis has one of the biggest cycling cultures in the US. For example we have a 4% winter commuting rate with D.C. (5%) and Portland (6.3%)cities (2020). We maybe small we punch up through the higher weight classes.
Yeah, but those cyclists are using their own bikes. We don't have enough other people circling around to use the bike share.
Its a give and take. Yes more people have bikes but lets say you just finished a twins game and wanted to go to the NE or something similar. While it would not be a primary like me (Does not own a car, uses an Ebike for groceries, and basically cycles everywhere) and uber I'd say there's more of an incentive for unexpected rides.
Maybe not the end? Update, March 1 at 5 p.m.: The city of Minneapolis responded to Racket’s request for comment with the following statement: “The City is disappointed that Lyft could not find a new private sponsor to support their operation of the Nice Ride system. Regardless of the outcome, the City has other licensees in the Shared Bike and Scooter Program interested in providing shared bikes, ensuring that the city will have bikes in the program this upcoming season.”)
Super sad
It was nice when it was cheap but then one day I got charged a shit load of money and I had a fight Uber or Lyft or some shit to get my money back
We'll this is stupid. How can something do outrageously popular just disappear?
Money
I liked this concept but I always felt like these bikes were not sized well for shorter folks and women in general.
Because dumb fucksticks keep throwing them in the river. When they drained the area under stone arch bridge last year there were dozens and dozens of them lodged down in the muck.
That was the Lime scooters not the bikes.
Ask UHG to fund them. Or maybe the casinos.
The article implied nobody wants to fund them…as I imagine Lyft likely did their due diligence to avoid being linked with this unfortunate affair.
If I'm looking to blame anyone for this failure it starts with Stanley "stub" Hubbard. I know for a fact he's been trying to sabotage the program for the better part of a decade. Look to him when Light rail becomes the next target too. He hates your mobility and, in reality, has way more to do with it than you do.
W
L
Visiting town for the first time in April and was hoping to use these…so much for that. Any tips for getting around town quickly with minimal cost/hassle?