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Bluebikes were supposed to be an Orange Line alternative, but on the eve of Orangepocalypse, their servers die
By adamg on Fri, 08/19/2022 - 4:53pm
People trying to register for Bluebikes accounts right now are can't, because the app is dead, something about servers or something. Bluebikes reports it's aware of the problem (not surprising given that @RideBlueBikes on Twitter is being barraged with complaints) and is telling would-be riders:
We appreciate you reaching out to report this issue. Our engineers have already been notified and are working on a fix as we speak. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
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Comments
Expect roving hordes of Blue
Expect roving hordes of Blue bikes around Jamaica Pond when this is resolved.
Making something free that is already in high demand
struck me as likely to cause problems with supply and resource allocation. But I didn't expect this problem.
Blue bikes bummer
My observation: the availability of BlueBikes has really increased over the years which is great, but the quality has definitely dropped off. Bikes that appear available but never ever unlock, docks that appear available but will not accept bikes, completely offline stations, and an app that sometimes just doesn’t work. Worst of all: these recurring problems at stations never get fixed no matter how many times you contact the service team.
I’ve got a conspiracy for that…
The issues really began when BlueBikes outsourced their technical support to Lyft, Inc around 2019. Not only did this represent a pretty significant decline in the quality of technical support (and amount of time you’d wait to speak to someone), but it also has lead to unfixed maintenance problems.
My local station has had six broken docks for two years now. The station is in high demand and frequently full even though there are “open” docks that are never repaired. The guys who distribute the bikes just know not to put bikes in them. Say nothing of the number of bikes I’ve had to mark as broken because of serious and obvious issues like non-functioning breaks, bent rims, etc.
How interested is Lyft in making it easy to ride bikes they don’t profit off of vs just hailing one of their cars?
Must be a scaling problem.
The servers are overloaded. Not really a surprise. Try again in a day or so.
Signal problems at Bluebikes
Just get on the platform at Wellington and wait for a connection to Oak Grove.
What happened to all those
What happened to all those electric scooters one could rent before?
An awful lot of them ended up
An awful lot of them ended up in the Charles. It also turned out that it was very easy and cheap to steal them.
Well, when you wait until the last minute...
I logged in several times over the past week, clicking the link on the cityofboston.gov site, only to get a weird error message that said "Your session has expired. Start over."
Well, that should've foretold this mess. The fact that they didn't see fit to allow people to proactively register over the week leading up to it, but waited until the day of to turn the deal on, what did they expect? Is their system so hard-wired that they couldn't honor the free month to start at a time other than "right now"?
(I spent 18 months in Y2K hell that drove me out of programming... has no one learned anything? Perhaps not... perhaps I wasn't the only one to flee.)
It might be related to code changes
that were required to honor the new free passes. It's surprising, sometimes, how small a change can introduce a bug that takes down the service.
Or it's a load issue, yeah. Either is equally plausible to me.
Free passes are not a new thing for BlueBikes
In fact just this month, they have offered free 24-hour Adventure passes every Monday.
I was lucky I guess. I signed
I was lucky I guess. I signed up this afternoon and took 2 rides around 530 and 6. I've used bluebikes in the past and love them, hopefully they get this resolved and new users can see how great it is.
tell those gerbils to pedal
tell those gerbils to pedal faster.
I am a Blue Bike
I am a Blue Bike
For round and about
Here is my pedal
Here is my mount
When you need me most
I go out
When you need me most
i'm not where you need me.
Lots of pearl clutching today
Lots of pearl clutching today.
Poor wit, dumb sarcasm
Oh so fortunate to need to depend on the various components of public transportation. Get on you horse drawn buggy and go to the Amish fields where you belong.
Good resource. lousy management
Seems that Bluebikes management is now managed by crisis. When enough complaints come in about given station then there is action. Instead of using use data and basing the balance of open docks to fulls docks the current management operates on the basis of how yells the most.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield have their brand on the bikes. That "non-profit," (how much are their execs paid?) are the sponsors.
Last miles biking is fantastic idea. But when it rises to a Class C quality....