SDOT cuts bikeshare fleets again after more poorly parked bikes

In June 2019, the Seattle Department of Transportation reduced the fleet maximum for both Lime and Uber Jump by 1,000 for misreporting improperly parked bikes. Both bikeshare outfits find themselves in hot water once again.

SDOT cuts Jump, Lime fleets by 1K for misreporting poorly parked bikes

The deal Lime and Jump has with the city set a series of benchmarks regarding poorly parked bikes. It established the following goals:

• Zero percent of audited bikes blocking a clear pedestrian pathway
• No more than 3 percent of audited bikes presenting “obstruction hazards” to pedestrians and people living with disabilities
• No more than 30 percent of audited bikes parked incorrectly in any way

In a series of SDOT audits, both companies failed to hit all three of those benchmarks. Combined, SDOT found 1.6 percent of bikes blocking pedestrian pathways; 17.4 percent presenting “obstruction hazards”; and 32.5 percent parked incorrectly.

“Seattle’s bikeshare vendors continue to struggle to meet permit-compliance thresholds for bikeshare parking,” SDOT’s Q2 bikeshare report reads. “… whatever the reasons for the increase in obstructions in Q2, neither bikeshare vendor made changes in their bikeshare operations that addressed this ongoing issue.”

The city cut both companies’ maximum fleet limits from 6,667 to 5,667 in April. After more incidents of bikes presenting ADA hazards in May and June, SDOT further reduced the fleets for Lime and Uber by 160 and 100 bikes respectively.

After the end of June, SDOT cut Lime and Jump’s fleet maximums by an additional 1,000 bikes, leaving them with 4,507 and 4,567 respectively.

In total, the city downsize Lime and Jump’s fleets by 2,160 and 2,100, respectively, in 2019.

Both companies’ current fleets are already below those maximum numbers, so at least for now, no one’s going to have to pull bikes off the street. However, SDOT noted that “unless improvement is seen, further reductions may require vendors to temporarily or permanently remove bicycles.”

Things aren’t all doom and gloom for bikeshares in Seattle, though.

Mike O’Brien wants to hold SDOT accountable for bike lane network

“The demand for bikeshare remains exceptionally high, despite significant changes to price and fleet availability,” noted SDOT.

Both companies cut their own physical fleet sizes in half between 2018 and 2019, largely a result of transitioning to electric-assist bikes. Despite that decrease, the decrease in total rides during that period was negligible, dropping from 595,000 to 588,000.

To accommodate more bikes and encourage better parking habits, the city plans to build 1,500 additional spaces for bikes across the city, “taking advantage of space that isn’t currently used.” It is also adding 160 new parking spaces for bikes along Alki Beach and Seacrest Marina, including “a new corral … that will be the largest in Seattle.”

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