Hyatt Rolls Out Urban Bike Rental Program In Downtown

[Metro Jacksonville]

Hyatt Rolls Out Urban Bike Rental Program In Downtown



Bike Hyatt, an urban bike rental program, is the newest addition to downtown Jacksonville's growing network of transportation options.

Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-jul-hyatt-rolls-out-urban-bike-rental-program-in-downtown

[JHAT76]

Over/Under on how many get stolen in the first year?

[Noone]

This is Super Positive news. Good for them. Was this ever before the DIA? How about the Downtown Experience subcommittee? Tony A, tufsu1, remember my Downtown Experience attempting both? Kayak and bike? Did the Hyatt just make this decision themselves?

I had 6 kayaks stolen. The difference with land and water is the opportunity to arrive at a Destination and that your bike or kayak will be welcomed. I hope that they are wildly successful.

Congratulations on having some courage to Make It Happen. This should provide an organic, tactical, infill, node, for an active emergence of spreading energy that will envelop a connectivity fever that tells the world to Visit Jacksonville.

[peestandingup]

Looks better than the heavy, screwy geared rattle traps most cities are using for their bike shares. I've been using DC's for over a month & they're just awful. The service itself is good, but those bikes man. Only good for very short distances.

Speaking of that, I'm glad Hyatt is taking the approach of 24 hour "go exploring around" approach. I feel like any bike share service in Jax should be taking this approach on some level, rather than using it for commuting only in very small time frames. DC's is set up so you pay a flat rate ($25) every month & you get the first 30 min of each ride free, then additional fees if you keep it longer than that (so no one does). Its basically go to a station, get your bike, go to wherever you're going in a hurry, then dock it again at the nearest station.

That may work in giant urban environments where most people are just trying to get from A to B, but Jax is different IMO. Hopefully of we ever get a city shared service, it looks into this.

[IrvAdams]

Looks better than the heavy, screwy geared rattle traps most cities are using for their bike shares. I've been using DC's for over a month & they're just awful. The service itself is good, but those bikes man. Only good for very short distances.

Speaking of that, I'm glad Hyatt is taking the approach of 24 hour "go exploring around" approach. I feel like any bike share service in Jax should be taking this approach on some level, rather than using it for commuting only in very small time frames. DC's is set up so you pay a flat rate ($25) every month & you get the first 30 min of each ride free, then additional fees if you keep it longer than that (so no one does). Its basically go to a station, get your bike, go to wherever you're going in a hurry, then dock it again at the nearest station.

That may work in giant urban environments where most people are just trying to get from A to B, but Jax is different IMO. Hopefully of we ever get a city shared service, it looks into this.

When Jax City government gets into it, maybe they could set a fee level for unlimited usage. You shouldn't have to carry a stopwatch for a bike rental in a city with this many miles of urban roads. It would basically be 'your bike', just stored in one of their corrals from time to time.

...And a resounding 'yes' to providing decent bikes. Really, why bother with POS bicycles? People will just walk.

[Ocklawaha]

Done effectively, bike share's at transit hubs could be a huge solution in Jacksonville (provided we had transit that would attract 'choice-riders') for our commuters. These facilities can provide what the industry terms 'last mile' connectivity. Thus a business owner in San Marco Square could get off a train, bus or the Skyway at Atlantic and the Florida East Coast Railway crossing and use the bike share to go that last mile to and from work.

[tufsu1]

The purpose of bike share is that it be used for short distance and short time period rides.  That's why most cities give you 30 minutes for free, 60-90 minutes at a nominal charge, and then it skyrockets.  If you want to ride a bike for several hours or longer, one should really go to a rental place.

As for the plans here, the system will be tied in extensively with the Skyway....which extends the reach of transit and addresses what is known in the industry as "the last mile"...basically how one reaches their final destination after from a transit station.

[ProjectMaximus]

For this form of bike share to serve as "the last mile" it will have to have stations at the end point to drop off bicycles.

I assume thats the plan, just pointing out the obvious last piece of the puzzle.

Was just in Montreal this weekend and their bike shares look nice. (Stations as well as the bicycles themselves) I did not try as I knew where I wanted to go on foot but had no idea where the bike stations would be.

[Dog Walker]

P.S.U., I don't know what kind of drive you mean by "screw drive".  I've ridden a drive shaft bicycle (no chain) for a few hundred miles in the past few years and it is great.  Eight gears in the hub and no delicate derailleur mechanism or chain to maintain.  Great technology for a city bike.  Efficiency lost over chain drive is about 5%, so it will never win races.  Just keep the tires pumped and ride.

In Holland everybody has three bikes; one to ride from home to the train station and one to ride from the train station to the office.  They have the first and last mile thing solved except for the real problem in finding your bike among thousands in the vast bicycle parking lots at the train stations.

The third bike is a sport bike for fun riding on the weekends.

[finehoe]

Was just in Montreal this weekend and their bike shares look nice. (Stations as well as the bicycles themselves) I did not try as I knew where I wanted to go on foot but had no idea where the bike stations would be.

There's an app for that:  https://www.spotcycle.net/

[peestandingup]

The purpose of bike share is that it be used for short distance and short time period rides.  That's why most cities give you 30 minutes for free, 60-90 minutes at a nominal charge, and then it skyrockets.  If you want to ride a bike for several hours or longer, one should really go to a rental place.

As for the plans here, the system will be tied in extensively with the Skyway....which extends the reach of transit and addresses what is known in the industry as "the last mile"...basically how one reaches their final destination after from a transit station.

I get that, but most shares seem to be used by out of towners, people visiting for short period of times who couldn't bring their own bike, etc. Which Jax doesn't really have a whole lot of. Meaning I don't know if relying on that demographic is sustainable for a share program in Jax to work. Maybe it could in small doses tied into the Skyway, but then the Skyway itself needs extended to make it more useful as well.

[peestandingup]

P.S.U., I don't know what kind of drive you mean by "screw drive".  I've ridden a drive shaft bicycle (no chain) for a few hundred miles in the past few years and it is great.  Eight gears in the hub and no delicate derailleur mechanism or chain to maintain.  Great technology for a city bike.  Efficiency lost over chain drive is about 5%, so it will never win races.  Just keep the tires pumped and ride.

In Holland everybody has three bikes; one to ride from home to the train station and one to ride from the train station to the office.  They have the first and last mile thing solved except for the real problem in finding your bike among thousands in the vast bicycle parking lots at the train stations.

The third bike is a sport bike for fun riding on the weekends.

Capital Bike Share in DC uses chains. I wrote that it was "screwy geared". Meant that its gearing system is kinda wonky (there's only 3), making you use much more force to get down the road. The bikes themselves are very heavy, really stubborn on any slight uphills, etc. If you read around, its a common complaint about them here. People use the hell out of them, but they're really not a good urban commuter bike at all. I could ride for miles & miles on my little Dahon folder, but feel like I'm gonna die after just a couple on these things.

[JayBird]

I haven't used DCs but I use CitiBike in NYC all the time and it's the exact opposite of what PSU points out. The majority of riders are commuters, they're having trouble attracting tourists/day riders because they are unfamiliar. Hopefully with more and more cities getting bike share, that will change.

In regards to the bike, those DC ones sound like the ones NYC uses and they're designed to be big and bulky and clunky. You are not supposed to be speeding through pedestrians and traffic as fast as you can pedal, but because people will, they limit the gears and make you work triple time if you really want speed. The fact that they don't want them stolen constantly also play into that undesirable design. It's a mode of transit for a limited time. Nothing more, and it shouldn't be.

I love this idea, but the reality is that this can't even be considered bike share, it's for guests of the Hyatt. And being that most visitors to Jax aren't used to humidity, I'd imagine it won't be highly successful for the hotel. The real success will be showing the city it is an option, one they can't deny when they see with their own eyes these brightly colored bikes riding down the road.

I support bike share, but being that Jacksonville is more of a "suburban" city, I think they'll have an uphill battle against the suburban mindset of bikes are bad, road-hogging, nuisances.

[finehoe]

Some interesting stuff about DC's system:  http://www.capitalbikeshare.com/assets/pdf/cabi-2012surveyreport-execsum-5-15-13-revtitle.pdf

[ProjectMaximus]

Was just in Montreal this weekend and their bike shares look nice. (Stations as well as the bicycles themselves) I did not try as I knew where I wanted to go on foot but had no idea where the bike stations would be.

There's an app for that:  https://www.spotcycle.net/

Lol. That would have helped if I had had data on my phone. Actually, speaking of that there were quite a bit of free wifi hotspots that seemed to be provided by the govt.