SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Lyft buys the biggest bike-sharing company in the US
Lyft has acquired Motivate, the bike-sharing company that operates Citi Bike in New York City and Ford's GoBike program in San Francisco. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though it was reported in June to be around $250 million.
Motivate, which Lyft says accounts for about 80 percent of bike-share trips in the US, also operates networks in Chicago; Boston; Washington, DC; Portland, Oregon; Columbus; and Minneapolis. Lyft says it "will invest to establish bike offerings in our major markets and pursue growth and innovation in the markets where Motivate currently operates," but it's unclear where or when it might expand beyond the cities Motivate is currently in. The company also did not share when Motivate's bikes will be available in the Lyft app.
Also at NYT and TechCrunch.
Previously: Uber May Try to Buy Citi Bike Parent Company Motivate
Related: New Electric Bikes, Scooters, and Dockless Bicycles Hitting U.S. Streets
Uber Buys Electric Bicycle-Sharing Startup JUMP Bikes
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 03 2018, @11:19PM (3 children)
Its a hipster thing to be seen on the bikes, so cost doesn't matter, in fact being very expensive is excellent conspicuous consumption. Poor people drive cars only rich hipsters can afford to ride a bike. None the less I'll dump the latest prices in my home town:
Bike rental $4 / 30 mins plus $4 for each additional half hour plus tax. Also your liability in infinite, if a homeless guy shits on the seat after you turn it in, or steals the wheel or whatever, they've got your CC and will charge it.
County operated bus, $3.50 for adults from anywhere in the city to anywhere in the city.
On one hand the bus only runs hourly and in theory it can take an hour to get from somewhere to anywhere plus statistical average delay before pickup of half hour, means 90 minutes, and the city is only about 4 miles on a side, so figure average walking trip length of 2 miles, if you can walk faster than 1.3 MPH then walking is faster than the bus. Which is why the bus system is mostly elderly people who can't walk, and a mobile homeless shelter. I think 8 MPH is reasonable for mostly non-sweaty bicycling (admittedly not today) so figure 15 minute average trip length.
The other hand is the county bus service has a written service obligation that all postal addresses are within X feet of a bus stop where X is like 500 feet, so if you're elderly you're guaranteed to never walk more than 1000 feet although in practice its almost always immensely less, whereas I'm a little fuzzy where you can catch a bike; AFAIK its not very convenient at all.
The bus is usable something like 18 hrs/day 365 days a year regardless of rain, cold, heat, personal handicap, number of shopping bags, and ironically all the bumpers have bicycle racks so you can take your bike. Given the local climate, the bikes are comfy and fun for about 10% of the year, the remainder being rainy, too hot, or too cold.
I'm kinda struggling to see how these places are staying in business aside from the usual financial bubble type of stuff.
As a side note, Uber seems to have destroyed the local taxi companies, although Uber Fare Estimator just gave me prices ranging from $8.56 to $20 to drive across my city from the hospital on one end to the stripmall bank on the other side. I suppose for NYC or Chicago that would be cheap, but "five bucks a mile" sounds insanely expensive. Possibly Uber was cheaper before the taxi companies were destroyed, much like walmart was cheap until it killed the local competition. I'm sure Uber would be by far the fastest mode of transportation short of owning your own car, but if you're spending $10 to commute two miles, you're rich enough to afford a nice car. My car costs like 50 cents per mile and even my wife's nice new van is less than a buck per mile. I mean, we're pretty wealthy but we're not wealthy enough to take Uber. Kinda like stuff from walmart falls apart instantly such that we're not rich enough to shop at walmart, we go to Target or my wife goes to these designer stores at the mall. Being able to afford Uber (or walmart, or the public bus system, or bike rental) is definitely a rich white guy privilege, richer than I am, and I'm pretty well off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:17AM
I sometimes use Lyft, and it costs me $12-14 per five miles, or $2.50 per mile, plus or minus. Tipping is optional. It is very good to always be able to get home, no cash needed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @02:23AM
Annual bikeshare subscriptions are $50-100 for unlimited trips under a certain length. You can just dock and use your key again to continue a long trip.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @10:03AM
So, that AngelHack bro reads SN...