BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Down with fixed gears! Oh wait... Pittsburgh is on track to do the same thing right? Put the stations in well to do neighborhoods? No access for the unbanked?

"These bike-sharing systems have a lot of different names: Divvy, Hubway, Nice Ride. But they all work roughly the same way." That's because they're all the same system, Public Bike System Company's Bixi, operated by Alta Bicycle Share. (And yes, this is the same system Pittsburgh is getting as well.) There are numerous other bike share systems in operation in the US and around the world, some in places where a lot fewer people have bank cards. Would've been nice to hear how they handle this problem.

I'm a bit perplexed the issue of preventing theft wasn't mentioned in the article, I think that's probably the main motivation for requiring a credit card. In Paris, you can pay by check, but you have to give a second check for €150 as a deposit (which is not cashed unless you don't return the bike, so I'm not sure how that works)... or you can use a debit card. Of course, all of those still require you to have a bank account of some sort...

A person needs a bank account or some equivalent financial mechanism to function in society. That a significant percentage of the population is "unbanked" in this country is something every last person should be goddamned ashamed of, and everyone should at least be cognizant of the larger problem and solutions to that. Bike share systems can not and should not be expected to resolve what is a symptom of a much larger disease. Linking bike share to a cell phone account is an outstanding idea. In fact, if traditional banks are unwilling to serve "less profitable" segments of society, I would be ok with phone companies providing all kinds of limited financial services, provided there is proper oversight (ha, ha, I know, funny, right?). The NYDOT giving out 100,000 helmets as some kind of outreach mechanism is one of the stupidest and most tone-deaf ideas I have recently heard.

I think the simplest solution would be to switch to a Connect Card type of system like the Port Authority uses here in town. To buy a card, you provide some sort of identifying info, but you can pay with cash, check, money order, bonds, and so forth. That would allow the unbanked to have easy access to the system while also connecting each rental to an actual person in case a bike goes missing. "A person needs a bank account or some equivalent financial mechanism to function in society. No, nobody actually needs a bank account to function in society. Having a bank account just makes doing certain things more convenient (like renting a bike, apparently). There are plenty of people that distrust banks for very understandable reasons (e.g. having a bank that's "too big to fail" lose your life savings). I wholeheartedly support everyone's right to manage their own money as they see fit for themselves. That said, I keep my money in a bank account, but if my neighbor wants to keep their earnings in a coffee can, that's their perogative and I can see no reason to proselytize them about the wonders of the financial service industry. The NYDOT giving out 100,000 helmets as some kind of outreach mechanism is one of the stupidest and most tone-deaf ideas I have recently heard. That was likely a response to the critics who said that CitiBike would be a catastrophe because it would flood the streets with unsafe, unhelmeted riders (just look up BikeSnob's coverage from the months leading up to launch). It's completely separate from anything to do with increasing access for the unbanked and everything to do with making people who were uncertain about CitiBike feel better about the program.

JaySherman5000 wrote:That would allow the unbanked to have easy access to the system while also connecting each rental to an actual person in case a bike goes missing.

How does the bike rental company recover the cost of the bike? don't see how knowing the name of the real person who was responsible for the loss gets them very far.

I found this student paper, "A study of the unbanked population in Chicago and best practices for their inclusion in bike-sharing" PDF that addresses this issue and talks about how the issue is handled in other cities (skip to page 35). ^I disagree Jay,The real solution is to get these people banked and credit worthy. The fees associated with check cashing services, western union and pay-day loan sharks is a travesty.

Hi all, I just want to correct a statement that buffalo buffalo made regarding Alta and Bixi being who we will use here in Pittsburgh. That is not correct. We have not yet chosen a supplier or an operator yet. Pittsburgh Bike Share does want to make the system accessible to everyone, and we will be looking into ways to do just that before we launch this summer.

The Chicago study recommends working with housing authorities to ensure access, but any institution can do that -- you could work with churches and non-profits, for example, so the unbanked can get memberships. A church could cover the financial responsibility requirement, and also do outreach and marketing to reach people who would otherwise not consider bike share. Bike share is a really good way to get lower income people access to transportation. It's important to get community groups that can reach these people involved in planning.

jonawebb wrote: How does the bike rental company recover the cost of the bike? don’t see how knowing the name of the real person who was responsible for the loss gets them very far. That's a matter of what credentials you require to buy the card that grants access to bikes. If you know, say, the person's home address, place of work, state ID number, etc..., then tracking them down becomes easier. It's not as easy as simply charging a credit card, but it can be done easily. Also, since stealing is a criminal act, there's motivation for the police to aid in tracking down any rental bike thieves, reducing the cost to the bikeshare entity. And there are probably a few insurance companies out there that would underwrite a policy for bikeshare bikes that used such a system, since eventually a bike (or payment) could be recovered easily, even from the unbanked. Of course, this all overlooks the obvious fact that these rental bikes are heavy, slow, and look very distinguishable from other bikes, all of which reduce the chances of theft. I really can't imagine a scenario where theft becomes a significant problem for bikeshare bikes, but I also think a reasonably managed system would budget for shrinkage the way that any good business does.

An easy (although unlikely to happen) solution would be to just hook these up to SNAP cards and have a separate transportation allowance. If the bike went missing, in addition to knowing who the person was who lost it, the transportation allowance could just be drained every month until the bike was paid off and the account could be flagged so it can't pull other bikes in the meantime How many bikes are actually going missing? I kind of agree with Bill that addressing decades of systemic poverty is beyond the scope of a bike sharing program.

Marko82 wrote: ^I disagree Jay,The real solution is to get these people banked and credit worthy. The fees associated with check cashing services, western union and pay-day loan sharks is a travesty.

I agree, check-cashing services, pay-day loans, and the like are terrible things. That's why people should avoid them, but there are plenty of ways to cash a paycheck that don't involve any of those businesses. After that, reasonable spending is simply a matter of making prudent money decisions, none of which need to necessarily involve a bank. Maybe our society should do more to educate people on how to make good financial decisions, but I still can't see a scenario where having a personal bank account is an absolute necessity. While we're on the topic, has anyone considered credit unions vs banks? I remember awhile ago there were some young people promoting local credit unions as better than large banks because the smaller organizations were thought to be less evil/greedy/maniacal. Can anyone offer a reasoned viewpoint either way?

" After that, reasonable spending is simply a matter of making prudent money decisions" There are people who are stuck in poverty even while making prudent money decisions. Making prudent money decisions at $7.25 will only take you so far... "I remember awhile ago there were some young people promoting local credit unions as better than large banks because the smaller organizations were thought to be less evil/greedy/maniacal." Let's take our local PNC for example: http://triblive.com/business/headlines/3111369-74/million-bank-card#axzz2nNC6kRnK They're part of a $227 million overdraft fee settlement. If you bought four cups of coffee with no money in the bank, that would cost you $36 a piece, plus extra money for each day the account was overdrawn. If you had $40 in the bank, and had say, a $40 bill and four cups of coffee, it would pay the $40 first and then tack on the four cups of coffee at $36 a piece. (regardless of chronological order) They did that for years. That was outlawed a year or so ago by the Obama administration. But they still can get overdraft charges from previously scheduled deductions (like bill payments) and they won't tell you your account is overdrawn until the end of the day, which means even if you had money to settle your account, unless you check your account everyday, presumably multiple times a day, you wouldn't know until after the overdraft fee had already accrued. So for poor people, who as noted in John's linked study, who are wary of spending $15 for a bike membership, losing $36 due to a rigged system is what leads to people being unbanked. Now local credit unions, AFAIK, are probably a lot less exploitative. They weren't part of this settlement. They weren't involved in the last financial meltdown. Larger banks also fund stuff like oil exploration and extraction, help fund things like Apartheid South Africa, etc

Beth wrote:Hi all, I just want to correct a statement that buffalo buffalo made regarding Alta and Bixi being who we will use here in Pittsburgh. That is not correct. We have not yet chosen a supplier or an operator yet. Pittsburgh Bike Share does want to make the system accessible to everyone, and we will be looking into ways to do just that before we launch this summer.

Huh, I thought I'd read it was going to be Alta. (The CMU/BKSQ share is a Bixi system, though, isn't it? Maybe that's where I got confused.) At any rate, sorry.

@Pierce: " So for poor people, who as noted in John’s linked study, who are wary of spending $15 for a bike membership, losing $36 due to a rigged system is what leads to people being unbanked. That's exactly the sort of thing I was referring to in my earlier post when I said "There are plenty of people that distrust banks for very understandable reasons..." I gave a different example, but the point was bad behavior by banks has led some people not to trust them. To engage your example for a moment, keeping a balanced checkbook ledger is a simple, low-tech way to always know how much spendable money is in your bank account. That's a bit of basic knowledge that anyone that uses a checking account should know, but it's also something that likely isn't taught in most schools due to people's irrational phobia of talking about money matters. I'm not a financial guru by any stretch of the imagination, but I know whether or not I can afford a cup of coffee (or four) because I know how to maintain a checkbook ledger. The banks may have some unfair practices when it comes to assessing penalty fees, but there's also a responsibility on the part of the customer to keep their own records. Getting back to the point of this digression, I still don't see why anyone actually needs a bank account in the first place. If someone is uncomfortable keeping their money in the bank, that's their decision. If the banks want to capture that lost business, they'll change their practices accordingly.

To bring this back on topic; I like the idea of linking the bikeshare to the SNAP card somehow. It would not only allow the ID'ing of the person, but also maybe help them pay for the usage of the system. On the other hand, SNAP is a food program not a welfare program so I don't think that would be allowed. Creating a linkage with churches where the church accepts the financial responsibility of misuse/theft would probably be easier to work out than changing some federal/state program. Speaking of misuse: I wonder how often the bikeshare is misunderstood and the bike remains "rented" for long periods of time? I can see someone ignorantly keeping a bike for the whole day or even multiple days and racking up quite a bill. Is there a provision for monetary forgiveness in such situations?

I'm confident that the unbanked population referenced in the original piece are not without bank accounts and credit cards due to some vague fear of the mainstream banking system. The idea that poor people might not have their money in a major bank out of fear that the bank will fail, and they will lose their life savings, is kind of funny. Sad and infuriating, but funny. If a person can't even provide the basic background required to rent a stupid bike, imagine how many other aspects of normal everyday contemporary life you are prevented from. Renting a bike would be the least of your worries. We are not all that far away from reverting to the system that allowed only property owners to vote. I'm sure there are forces in society that would be completely in favor of that. (edit; oops, sorry Marko, don't want to keep kicking that horse, I'm done.)

@edmonds59: "I’m confident that the unbanked population referenced in the original piece are not without bank accounts and credit cards due to some vague fear of the mainstream banking system. The idea that poor people might not have their money in a major bank out of fear that the bank will fail, and they will lose their life savings, is kind of funny. Sad and infuriating, but funny." As we've already hashed out via the posts above, some people are afraid of banks losing their money--whether their life savings is 30+ years of IRA contributions or just this week's paycheck--hence they don't open accounts (those people might not meet your definition of "poor" but I digress...). Other people are weary of a system that imposes harsh penalties for seemingly minor infractions and have been burned by past mistakes. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons people may choose not to use banks (e.g. not enough money to open an account, no reliable source of income, not wanting to create a record of income, not understanding how money works, etc...), but the fact that I was not discussing each specific example is no reason to get your underwear in a bunch. I think the idea of tying the bikeshare rental to a SNAP card was what I was thinking of with the Connect Card type of system: tie the rental to an actual person so they can be held accountable if a bike isn't returned.

JaySherman5000 wrote:If you know, say, the person’s home address, place of work, state ID number, etc…, then tracking them down becomes easier.

IMHO, you are mixing two different problems: tracking down and recovery payment. Even if you know where person lives it's not even close enough to recover money. There is a lengthy process how and you can do.

I will throw in yet another dimension. And maybe I'm just blowing smoke rings. I'm sure this has been thought about elsewhere, and Pittsburgh is just getting around to this, so someone needs to say it first here. If there's a good answer, then great, let's hear it. OK, so there's this: An "unbanked" person, through whatever means, rents a bike. Rides it around town for a couple hours, goes here, goes there, perfectly legitimate use. But does not realize that someone has it in for him/her, and when s/he is in a store for a little bit, steals the bike. Borrower comes out of store, and is now doubly SOL: Cannot get home with what s/he purchased in the store, and second, is now out a couple thousand bucks for a bike. With NYC and a bunch of other cities' systems already in use, this must have been thought of by someone. How is this handled? How should this be handled?

StuInMcCandless wrote:nd when s/he is in a store for a little bit, steals the bike.

You're not supposed to leave bikes out. You're supposed to return them to stations and NOT park them elsewhere, this keeps them secure and is why they don't provide locks, and encourage short trips based on pricing structure from what I understand. Am I wrong about this?

Actually, when I tested one out at the demo in market square a while back, it did have a built in cable lock, presumably for a quick run into a store or something. Still, the point stands - they're not really meant for long term use. Bike share isn't meant to get people from their house to the store or to work. It's meant to get you from the bus station to work, from your office to a meeting on the other side of downtown, or across the river to lunch. For things like full commuting or grocery shopping, or whatever, you use your own bike.

In Paris, the pricing does encourage short trips (30/45 min free then escalating fees), and there are enough stations that it's pretty easy to lock up at a station and get another bike to go home... but their bikes still had built-in cable locks, since it's still undeniably convenient to be able to lock up and run in somewhere quickly, and cable locks are ok for that. I think grocery shopping or running errands is a pretty perfect application for bike share, though. I'd imagine a fair number of people use them for commuting as well. Personally, I love the "extension of public transit" case, there are so many more bus options within a 5 minute bike ride from my house compared to a 5 minute walk.

@Salty, I think the "extension of public transit" is one of the most exciting things about Burgh Bike Share - not only in terms of the actual operational benefit, because in the new-normal so many trips are multi-modal (for at least those physically able to bike, that's a factor) -- but also because politically, so many transit users and so many new BikeShare users will have needs/goals that align with the existing bike community. The potential for alliance-building is tremendous.