Bike sharing aftermaths
By now you’ve all seen in one city or another bike sharing programs usually sponsored by banks, or new startups creating two-wheel fleets trying to curb car traffic. It’s a very interesting idea that has made its way around the globe landing in many large cities across countries.
Pilot projects begun very well and pushed their way through their following phases introducing more bikes and moving onto other cities. Riding around downtown has become one of my favorite traveling methods, especially between spring through the fall, where you get to experience the city under a different lens.
It took me a good ten seconds to realize these are not flowers, but an endless stack of abandoned bikes.
Unfortunately there have been some major side-effects where users picking up bike wouldn’t return them from their starting rack. Some were found abandoned inside water canals, other in landfills, other stolen. This is the case of Chinese companies oversupplying the market despite the increase activity of bike sharing.
Bluegogo was the 3rd largest company providing this service but has shut its doors after running out of money, so the rival brand Didi acquired it and absorbed the fleet. Now large cities in China are experiencing a flooding of bikes that have no place to go but the landfill.
China’s emancipation begun with the bike and ended with the bike. You can’t teach old dog new tricks.
Some experts are worried we are incurring a bubble in terms of bike apps and startups, and it’s not even a confined issue in Asia anymore, Europe has its own programs and will likely face the same problems. It may be more a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.
The shared economy we just entered has showed us all the goodies, but now what it’s surfacing are the aftermath of business who expanded too fast and contracted even faster, leaving behind the unwanted spoils of war cities haven’t had the time to realize it already happened.
Perhaps we ought to go back riding horses since they are living creatures that need to be taken care of, also because without the attention they won’t properly function and cannot be tossed in a ditch when we don’t need them anymore.
[Photos: theatlantic.com]
