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| Promise at restart: A full complement of bike at Inner Harbor in October 2917. In summer 2018: Maybe one bike |
But Baltimore's problem is of a different kind. This city is so mired in feuds over bicycle lanes, fire-lane requirements and ongoing guesswork whether the presumably 200+ bikeshare bikes really exist, (according to earlier announcements there should be more like 500 bikes out there) that other cities who complain about the flood of alternative mobility options seem to from a different planet. In short, when it comes to the bicycle in this City it is another case of Baltimore exceptionalism., the kind one could do without.
In Baltimore, presumably the first large North American City with a electric fleet bikes, even this traditional model with bikes in docks never really took hold. It started years late and had to be shut down within 9 months due to excessive vandalism and docks which relinquished their bikes if one yanked hard enough. The system sputtered back to life after a few month of fleet repairs and the installation of fortified "Baltimore locks"going into the winter of 2017/18. Now, the still not even 2 year old toddler seems sick again. There is renewed whisper about Bewegen's ability to maintain the system. The online rumors are fueled by the many empty bike-stations, non functional bikes and an apparent lack of momentum towards the promised system expansion.
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| Bewegen Technologies: Electrc spark for share bikes |
"We love Baltimore" the Bikeshare Company Bewegen which runs this city's system posted on their Facebook page in June, showing a video clip with three bicyclists on the trademark blue bikes riding by. The film clip was received by mockery. One incredulous poster asks, "How many kiosks did they have to go to to get 5 bikes is my question" and posts a picture of a station bare of any bikes. Another responds: "So that's where all four bikes went". Both comments remained unanswered by bike operator Bewegen. A recent company issued "service alert" showing an additional station #48 at Perkins Home as just added, indicates progress towards the promise of 50 stations and 500 bikes not only in the so called "white L" but also in poorer parts of the city in the "black butterfly". But a glance at Bikeshare's online map where all the stations are marked with supposedly accurate info about the number of available bikes in each station, shows many zeros on Friday morning and maximally three bikes in any station on Friday evening. With somewhere around 40 stations open, there are nowhere near the 400 bikes that the system is to offer now. Greg Hinchliffe, a member of the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Commission reports that a few months ago the Commission was told that of "the 450-ish bikes the city paid for, only about 150 were available. Of the 300 bikes which were not available, 200 were damaged and 100 missing, presumed stolen".
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| The newest fad: Dockless electric scooters from Bird. DOT: “We also see the potential of a new mobility pilot project and are in the process of investigating the effectiveness of a program such as this.” |
In February it looked like Bewegen got a big boost when the car share company Lyft declared they would become a sponsor of the Baltimore bikeshare system, sponsoring five docking stations. This caused Baltimore blogger Brian Seel to pen an enthusiastic article about The Company that Believes in Baltimore.
Lyft appears to be partnering with Bike Share, not because they want five new billboads, but because they see the value in a thriving transportation system in Baltimore. (Brian Seel)Overall though, Baltimore's Bikeshare has produced mostly negative headlines: about stations routinely having few or no bikes, bikes not working, vandalism, theft and the mobile app giving wrong information. After the system reopened last October, just in time for the first anniversary, it boasted revamped bikes and stronger locks, but winter wasn't the best time to expand. So things began to drag. It didn't help that Baltimore's City bike share coordinator Jay Decker did the classic revolving door thing and switched from being a DOT employee overseeing Bewegen to being a Bewegen employee at the height of last fall's crisis. The position is still vacant at DOT. Naturally, Decker couldn't work on Baltimore's system, otherwise the conflict would have been too glaring, DOT Director Pourciau sent a stern letter reminding the company of this.
Bicycles and uninstalled station docks seem to sit in Westport where Bewegen has its Baltimore headquarter. It isn't clear how the company justifies the absence of bicycles. The only one who said anything to me, Chris King, Baltimore's Bewegen rep hinted darkly about politics and vandalism but referred me otherwise to the Director of Business Development & Marketing, Braunyno Ayotte. He eventually provided an e-mail with responses to my questions which were posted below but removed again per his request. In his mail he confirmed his commitment to Baltimore, stated that "Bewegen has out-rolled all promised stations and bikes from the previous shut-shut plan" which may or may not mean that it also provided all bikes and stations promised for the expansion phase. He noted that "theft has been reduced due to a number of initiatives, [but that] general vandalism has reached extreme levels". He observes that "usage and member levels shows that Baltimore needs this service and that bike-share can work here.".
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| Dockless share bikes in Denver: Too much clutter? |
For this article I also asked DOT Director Pourciau to clear up what is rumor and what is fact, and how sound Bewegen's operation really is. But the response from communications officer German Vigil was quite tortured which one could take as a red flag in itself.
The Department of Transportation has been working with our provider Bewegen to assess current contract conditions to move the bike-share program forward. Data shows a strong demand for bike –share in Baltimore and membership is growing. DOT is proceeding aggressively to reconcile issues that are affecting the bike-share program. DOT is working with Bewegen to overcome concerns, such as broken bikes and application issues. Through ongoing analysis and work with Beweggen, we have discovered that the bike-share program is experiencing higher than anticipated damage and ongoing technical difficulties. Contract discussions continue to ensure this program is successful. (Baltimore DOT).The statements from the two contract partners indicate serious tensions and problems, those which the City has with the company and those the company has with the City and its politics. These tensions don't seem to occur in other cities in which Bewegen was hired: Howard County's smaller system in Columbia, a 16 station 160 bike system in Richmond Virginia and Birmingham, AL with a system of 400 bikes. There are also a number of very small systems in Europe. Birmingham like Baltimore is eyeing the dock-less bike as the next big thing with potentially over a 1000 bikes which could co-exist with the current Zyp system of Bewegen. Meanwhile, Birminghams bike station seem all well stocked on Friday night and also when a Baltimore transportation planner visited there recently. One can assume that the Baltimore Bikeshare problems will soon come to a head and it will become public what is at the root of the current dysfunction.
The dockless electric scooters from Bird are a small sign that mobility innovators have not yet given up on Baltimore yet. Meanwhile the City is working on regulations for dockless bicycle sharing, which is sweeping across the continent and flooding some cities with more bicycles than they care to see in their public spaces. It is hard to imagine that a city which can't handle orderly lined up docked bikes would do any better with bikes that must be searched via smartphone and could be found just about anywhere. Even in prosperous Dallas many of their dockless bikes wound up in some waterway. Baltimore's blue bikes also had to be already fished out of the harbor. The City of Milwaukee has sued the scooter operator Bird for operating unlicensed vehicles on public right of ways. The road of alternative share vehicles is bumpy.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
updated for information from MBAC member Greg Hinchliffe and for Milwaukee suit on Bird. Updated for response received from Braunyno Ayotte 7/10/18
A recent article in Baltimore Fishbowl added here on 7/26/18:
The Baltimore Bike Share system is about to fail - again
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