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Some Bluebikes are all wet
By adamg on Sat, 11/11/2023 - 10:39pm
Gary noticed what low tide exposed at Christopher Columbus Park this afternoon.
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Comments
People are such jerks.
I often see aspiring thieves checking all the bikes in a rack hoping to grab one that's not fully secured. I wonder who pays when the stolen ones wind up underwater.
According to the company
According to the company rules, the borrower who didn't properly return the bike is the one paying the $1200 fee (charged on their credit card) although I am not sure how well this gets enforced. If not, the rest of us are paying for it since the hardware is owned by the participating cities.
Seeing that little green light blink when the bike gets returned and docked to a station is a must, otherwise it will very likely disappear -In regularly see people checking docked blue bikes by just lifting them from the seat to see if they come loose.
https://help.bluebikes.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035302811-My-bike-was-lo...
Good to be Lyft
They charge a ton of money to ($100k+) to cities for each dock and some bikes. And they keep raising the prices for rentals which the users pay.
I'm all about public bikes and I'd rather see Blue Bikes than no bikes at all. But it is a bit irksome that it's Lyft behind it all now.
Lyft has long lifted from city ….
…. residents and visitors in many different exploitive ways.
I’d give thanks to see the CEOs and investors in stocks on Boston Common.
Yikes.
If I was on the hook for $1,200, I'd make damn sure the bike was on the rack.
But I suspect you're right about enforcement. They probably don't allow people to use prepaid or underfunded debit cards, but I bet there are a ton of contested charges and chargebacks. And if Lyft is behind it, and the cities and towns guarantee them against losses, they probably don't care too much.
No Prepaid credit cards
Or virtual numbers like Apple pay, at least according to their website. They put a $25 hold on normal credit cards.
It looks like you don't need a credit card to sign up for the low income membership. They use an EBT card for verification, I think.
I'm guessing not many people get charged the full $1200 if they put up some resistance. Cities probably take the hit when bikes are stolen.
Boston pioneered this game!
It's called "Will it float?" First with chests of tea, later it became a popular segment of the Late Night with David Letterman. Shopping carts, traffic cones, cars back in the 80's, etc.
Outright theft
I don’t know what’s up day to day at Atkinson St these days but most pictures when it was crowded show lots of blue bikes and it doesn’t appear anyone is rushing back to return them. Yesterday I saw a fellow camped out in the doorway of my local branch library with a Blue Bike rigged as a tent pole.
To whatever degree the city is on the hook for stolen bikes, there are certainly plenty of them being kept out beyond the 45 minute limit. The ones in the river are just a bonus.
yup
The YMCA at the end of my street has some very obvious former bluebikes that have been painted different colors besides blue.
And every so often when we get a super low tied, the shoreline in the Chelsea Creek always has some that have been thrown in the water.
I think maybe the mindset is that.. do a crime, dump the bike b/c its tracked. Or if you steal it, use it for a while and dump it.