Tonight – Ocean Beach Is the ‘Battleground’ over Dockless Bikes

Tonight – Wednesday, March 7th – Ocean Beach becomes the focus in the “battle” over dockless bicycles, for representatives of 3 so-called bike-sharing companies will appear at the OB Planning Board. The Board holds their monthly meeting at 6pm in the Community Room of the OB Recreation Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue.

OB – as have other communities around San Diego – has been swamped of late with LimeBikes appearing overnight without warning. Tourists and visitors seem to like them – but what about locals?

Complaints about the lime green bikes have been sharp on OB’s social media and on our site here. One OBcean recently complained that the bicycles had taken up all bike spaces in the bike rack outside Rite-Aid on Sunday night.

On the agenda tonight at the OB Planning Board is a scheduled Action Item with representatives from Lime Bike, Ono Bike and Bird Scooters to field questions from the Board – and the public – with the discussion resulting in possible recommendations from the Board.

San Diego U-T writer, Joshua Emerson Smith, recently wrote how San Diego is the “latest battleground in global war to control ‘dockless’ bike rental market”. He writes:

So-called dockless bike sharing started in China in 2014 as a student project at Peking University in Beijing. The idea is an outgrowth of rental businesses requiring users pick up and return bikes at sidewalk docking stations.

In recent months, the fledgling industry’s top companies — rolling in hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital — have cruised into downtown San Diego to battle for the attention and brand loyalty of urban residents on the go.

Investors in businesses such as the China-based Ofo and Mobike, as well as the Silicon Valley startup LimeBike, are each betting urbanites will get hooked on their particular — albeit very similar — product.

So, the different companies are battling for the minds and souls – and particularly the pocket books and wallets – of San Diegans and our visitors – pushing their brand with the hope of coming out on top.

LimeBikes got in OB first, it seems. And OBceans have been experiencing the same problems with them that Smith outlined:

These bike-sharing companies have lots of challenges, including cycle-cluttered sidewalks, constant maintenance, vandalism, and the need to fetch bikes abandoned in far-flung areas.

Smith from the SDU-T quoted Denny Knox, executive director of the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association, who told him:

“We find quite a few stacked up together and not necessarily standing either. They look like they’re getting vandalized too.”

Local media have also reported that some residents in Imperial Beach, where LimeBikes were introduced last fall, have not liked the bikes, leaving them in the middle of the street, throwing one off the IB Pier.

And it appears many in China are not that much into them either. Emerson interviewed one San Diegan who recently traveled to Beijing and recounted the situation there for the  bikes:

“They’re just scattered all over the streets. You can’t even walk on the sidewalks. You’re just walking over bikes. So I think there’s a point where you have to draw the line.”

OB residents who have questions about and for these privatized-bike-sharing companies, ought to attend tonight’s meeting.

Go here for the full agenda.