Monday will mark the one month anniversary of Lime Bike’s official arrival in Newton. What’s your view of how the program is working one month in?
How do you think the Lime Bikes are working out?
by Greg Reibman | Aug 17, 2018 | bicycles | 121 comments
They’re rarely, if ever, used in the Auburndale area. I’ve only seen them physically moving when people are walking them away from in front of their homes. They sat at the intersection of Commonwealth and Lexington for over a week until someone moved them to their new location on the corner of Auburn and Grove. Maybe T riders will eventually use them if they end up migrating over there.
Where to begin….
I will start by saying that the concept is great. The implementation has been horrible.
Bikes have been left anywhere and everywhere…often with no regard to placement. Far too often I have seen them blocking sidewalks, left on lawns, several of them dumped in the Cheesecake Brook by Albemarle, thrown out into the street, etc.
Limebike and the Mayor want people to be considerate and respectful of where they leave these bikes but sadly, people are far from respectful and considerate.
When they were initially deployed by Limebike, 6 bikes were parked on the sidewalk in front of a housing complex in Nonantum that has numerous disabled residents. Many of these people are in electric wheelchairs or on walkers. The bikes were placed in such a way by Limebike that 3/4 of the sidewalk was blocked. So even Limebike lacked respect and consideration.
I could go on and on but I wont.
All I will say is that there should be designated docking stations for these bikes. Specific locations could be identified for these docking stations and the clutter of what looks and feels like abandoned bikes would be far less.
After 3 rides, I’m disappointed to find that LimeBikes feel a bit heavy, lumbering, and uncomfortable. And they certainly do give the rider an acute sense of the topography of Newton, highlighting inclines never noticed before. The seats don’t go up quite high enough; the gears are not sufficiently forgiving of Newton’s hills.
I like the idea of having bikes available for spontaneous use, and the technology side of the LimeBike implementation works well, but the bikes themselves are awkward. And the hey-I-don’t-have-a-helmet problem remains. My use of the bikes has been rather spontaneous, and I don’t carry a helmet with me.
My most recent ride ended near the top of a hill, and I thought to myself, “I’m better off dropping off the bike at the bottom of the hill and walking the last bit.” Maybe LimeBike should offer ride credits for rides that end at high elevations!
Overall I like Lime bikes and the Non-dock aspect of them. Here in the suburbs, with so much less density than the city, the “last mile” aspect is terrific. I have used them many times to get from the T to home (approx 1 mile), and on other occasions to ride to a location when I know I have a ride on the return. Docks would not work in my neighborhood.
However, I do agree with Bruce Henderson that although the bikes are cleverly built, they could use a little more height on the seat adjustment and a “granny gear” (easier gears).
All in all I am an enthusiastic supporter and I think many of the issues (inconsiderate parking) will resolve with time.
I like the idea but as others have said the implementation has been problematic. I can’t figure out how this business model can be made financially sustainable in Newton.
No helmets? Non starter! At least Mayor Full-of-it had the brains to wear a helmet for her Lime Bike test ride. She reminds me a bit of Dukakis in that tank.
@Mike: Shared helmets are not a good idea. Proper fit is important (cleanliness ought to matter too). I’ve purchased a second helmet to leave at my office.
I agree about shared helmets. Not a solution. But the City is subsidizing Lime Bike by allowing them to rent bikes from public property locations. Until the company offers a viable solution to put helmets on the heads of all their customers, the City should not allow them to continue operating here. It’s dumber than Ubers without seat belts.
In some communities Lime bikes supply helmets to regular users, but since MA helmet law only covers riders under 16, they have no reason to supply them here.
My grandsons wanted to try them but couldn’t find 3 or 4 together. From what I’ve heard from my young biking friends, the gears are hard to change, the seats won’t go high enough and the hills need more gears. So basically the same as the above commenters.
The bikes are great in concept but we need more of them. I live right down the street from a park and from Needham Street, yet several times when I’ve planned to ride one, I’ve been unsuccessful finding one that is close enough to be worth it.
Question: The application says that the bikes rent for $1 per half hour. I’m still trying to figure out if I can ride the same bike to more than one location without having to pay again. If I’m riding to a couple of locations on Needham Street, for example, can I keep the same bike or do I have to check it in each time I dismount?
I have been on vacation for 2 weeks of the trial but did manage to get a ride in and liked it. We rented Donkey Republic bikes in Copenhagen and liked that bike a bit more as it was a little more sturdy and found the built in phone holder helpful to have if you have google maps guiding you. They also had an interesting model that charged you a small fee if you parked it somewhere that they considered less than optimal. They also have tons of bike racks so parking it in a rack is no issue.
I did hear a great comment from someone re:lime bikes. Her husband was prepared to fuss because there was a bike in front of their house until he learned his son rode it home from work instead of asking for a ride.
I’d like people to move beyond the “I don’t have a helmet” argument. Helmets add to safety, there is no doubt of that. But what makes people ever SAFER is large numbers of cyclists on the road.
Also, helmets are very important when you’re leaned over the handlebars like a racer and moving at 20mph (a sudden stop or a pothole is sending you headfirst), but when you’re sitting up on a bike, as you are on Lime Bike, and moving at a relatively slow pace, you are more likely to fall to the side.
If it’s the car that worries you, the speed of that car is a key issue not simply the presence of it, so you want more cyclists as cars will slow down for many in a way that they don’t for one. Trucks are a different story.
Yes, I ride with a helmet, but don’t let the lack of one stop you from riding. If we have an increase in riders the riding itself will become safer.
The US is really the only place in the world with this heavy emphasis on helmets and while it can be positive, we shouldn’t let it hold us back.
Having more cyclists on the road will ultimately make cycling safer but that’s not really a good argument for riding around without a helmet.
I too question the viability of the business model in Newton. I live in Newton Center and I saw the same Lime Bike parked in the same place for three days. It was at the top of the ramp down to the outbound T and it say there and never moved. I know it was the same one because it had two pieces of trash sitting in the basket all three days and it never moved.
I see the bikes “staged” each morning in groups of three or four on Centre Street in front of NC Green. The impression I have is they are placed were they will get maximum visability, but the problem is the commuters zipping through NC aren’t their likely target customer.
There was one sitting mid block on my street that someone clearly had ridden home. But it sat in front of that house for 4 days.
I can count on one hand the number of people I have seen riding them and that includes to young women who were actually walking them up Hammond Pond Parkway towards Beacon. The impression I got was they were having trouble riding the up the very gentle inclines there.
On a positive note, I have seem the tossed around or parked inappropriately. I was just noting that this morning.
@Gail, if you lock the bike, that ends your current ride. So if you want to go from A to B to C, you could do so on one ride if you don’t lock the bike at B (not recommended) or on two separate rides (assuming that no one took the bike at B while you were doing an errand there!).
Thanks Bruce.
I to really like the idea of the dockless bikes, but fully agree with all the points in Bruce and Terry’s assessments. Too heavy, poor gearing, difficult on shallow inclines, too short seat post, etc. They are difficult to even bike over the Mass pike overpass in Newtonville. At the moment there is not one bike in Newtonville south of the pike (even city hall is empty). Not sure if that is lack of demand or the fact that east and west of Walnut you are climbing up hills. I hope the Spin bikes lack some of these weaknesses.
I was in Seattle over the weekend, where they also have lime bikes, and immediately noticed two things. First their basic lime bikes have 8 speeds instead of 3, and they also have a near equal number of battery-assist bikes as regular bikes to deal with Seattle hills. The rates on the battery bike are not so great ($1 unlock plus $0.15/min), but they take the hills out of the equation and you get where you are going relatively fast. I used one to get to a nearby running path on a lake instead of running around city blocks. The current bikes are so slow I’m not sure lack of a helmet is as bike a risk as one might perceive.
Cambridge and Allston have a fair number of bikes available even though they are out of the network. I took one home along the river path. It was a pleasant trip although quite the workout for the last couple of miles.
I have used them only twice so far. Both because transit was not running late enough or was shut down without substitute (Thanks MBTA Worcester Line)
Full disclosure I own two bikes, a 50lb dutch cargo bike and a single speed setup for winter riding.
I used them from the Highlands back to Newtonville and from Newton corner back. Notes:
airless tires means they ride hard and “heavy” but they won’t get flats
gearing was ok but needs something lower for hillier parts for sure.
I was able to get the seat high enough for me at 5-10 no problem, seems like some of the above people might be giants… 😀
A docked model was never going to work in Newton simply because there was not the money to do so. 100k/station with like 5 bikes for a 5 year engagement of Hubway was a nonstarter. The dockless has a chance to work much better but we still need some investment in more bike parking and some form of incentive for folks to use the racks.
I saw a mom riding with her little girl this morning as I biked into work, her girl had her bike and the mom was on a Lime. I have seen examples of these a couple times, where one or two members of the party are on their own bike and one other is on a lime. I have seem folks riding along the Charles and riding to it.
I have also moved and lined up bikes along my typical commute, organizing them and making sure they are not blocking the sidewalk.
Absent minded people will be absent minded, us civic minded folks need to chip in and help a bit to make sure this program does not impact others in our community.
I like them and I expect concerns to be dialed in as the program matures.
And helmets? I don’t use one when I ride Bluebike and I won’t when I ride Lime either. I do use one on part of my commute but only because of the image it projects when I don’t. Could I get in a crash where one might be effective? Sure, but I could also slip in the shower, or fall down stairs, or hell get in a crash while driving a car, wearing a helmet in these instances would certainly help as well.
And no they are not as effective as you think they are:
http://www.waba.org/blog/2013/06/feds-withdraw-claim-that-bike-helmets-are-85-percent-effective/
2-26% is not nothing but that benefit is also gained by riding slow, riding with lights, and riding upright all of which are in play when riding Lime. None of them help with concussions (engineered football helmets are struggling to deal with that major risk, a bit of foam is not going to cut it) which is really your major risk factor here.
So lets stop with the helmet games and ride a bike, use a helmet, don’t use a helmet, we desperately need people to be more active, and heck you will get a workout on these bikes going up the Newton hills for sure!
Where have they all gone? When they first arrived a few weeks ago, there were over half a dozen sitting on the block in Newtonville. They were all over town. Not being ridden, but at least there. But I haven’t even seen one for the past couple of days. Not sitting, not being ridden. Maybe one. I wonder if Lime is taking back some of their stock. Or if people are “misplacing” them.
Wait until Jump Bikes arrive. These e-bikes will be way more popular in Newton based on limebike limitations noted above.
They have no right to leave a bike on my property. It happens too often and it’s not acceptable. Bikes will be moved off the property. Ugly and blocks driveways. Irresponsible of the City to allow without helmets.
My daughter and her friend tried them out since one of our bikes had a flat. Rain was in the forecast so I figured that they could bike to where they wanted to go and if needed I could pick them up and they could leave the bikes wherever. It was a bit tricky to rent two bikes on the same account. They had to use their individual phones with codes I told them to log into my account. It would be nice for a family to be able to rent mutiple bikes using one phone. It didn’t take us long to figure out a work around. The girls left the bikes in front of our house when they were done. We saw the lime bike truck pick up the bikes the next day and move them. So I think the placement of them has to do with where the company puts them in rather than where they are being left. The bikes served their purpose.
I see this is a total novelty.
Transportation needs to be reliable. If I have a meeting at the chamber office at noon, I need to know that I can walk to West Newton Center and have a reasonable chance of finding a bike at 11 am. And although I’m fortunate enough to be in good enough shape to make that trip… There are some pretty steep hills that would be challenging for most people.
A dear friend of mine just passed away a couple months ago and left me a electric bike which I was surprised to really enjoy riding. I don’t use it often cuz I have three other bikes that I love as well.
You can ride and electric bike same as a regular bike but if you need that extra push its available. It makes a big difference if you’re going to consider adding biking as a serious transportation option.
No matter how physically fit a person may be, peddaling Chestnut Street from West Newton on a 95 degree day …
I remember seeing bikes on Newbury Street in Boston and they were at a fixed location and they must have been a good 25 bikes lined up. That makes a lot more sense to me.
I don’t like riding with a helmet either, but I saw a demolished bike today at the corner of crafts and Waltham Street. Made me think of minute about my helmet usage. Hopefully that person is okay I don’t know how they could be though.
I saw the same bike accident. What I heard was that the injury was to the person’s leg, not to their head.
On the subject of bike helmets, I’ll share the advice my next door neighbor, a neurologist, gave my husband when he saw him riding without a helmet:
a) you have to set a good example for your kids by wearing a helmet; and
b) you only get one brain.
Reasonable people can disagree about point a, but I don’t think there’s any good rebuttal to point b.
Yeah, I don’t think that the bike clique of Newton is really doing a service by downplaying the importance of helmets.
I don’t think there’s a bike clique any more than there’s a car clique. All sorts, sizes and shapes of people ride bikes.
Comments on this thread downplay the importance of bike helmets in general and, as Lisap said, reasonable people can disagree. I’m firmly in the no helmet/no biking camp and believe that adults should set an example for kids.
I would also encourage people to look at this well cited document from the WHO. http://www.who.int/roadsafety/projects/manuals/helmet_manual/1-Why.pdf Just because helmets might be LESS effective than people think doesn’t mean that they’re worth ditching. Imagine if you got killed or brain damaged and it could have been prevented by a helmet and your loved ones have to live with the fact that it was preventable.
I appreciate the push for more biking in our society, but pushing it with a disregard for safety is not a good idea. You’ve got people like Chuck downplaying the importance of helmets and in previous threads admitting to running red lights while biking. This doesn’t help your cause.
Oh there is most definitely a bike clique in Newton.
@Greg @Claire
It’s not really a bike clique, it’s more an “everyone must bike more to save the planet and legislate to that end”
clique.
Not me, Mike. I rode to work today as part of the “wow after all that horrid, humid weather it’s an amazing day” clique and also as part of the “I didn’t get to the gym yesterday so I should bike today” clique.
That’s my type of bike clique, Greg!
I can’t wait until we get electric scooters… can we pleeeeese get scooters?!
With regard to helmets: I always wear one when I leave home on my bike.
On the occasion when I can use a LimeBike for a 15 minute utility run and I have no helmet, I take the spin.
Helmets are an essential part of biking but there are occasions when, by necessity, you cautiously take a short ride.
P.S. A couple of years ago I spent the New Years week in Amsterdam (they know how to celebrate!) and the city is a bike city with trucks, cars, many pedestrians, a crowded city center and very few helmets…
I’ve seen people use the “helmets are rare in [insert location]” but it doesn’t mean much. Many other places have high cigarette smoking rates or outlawed gay marriage etc etc. Just because a city or country does one thing that seems OK doesn’t mean they’re better or safer or that they have the same culture as here.
Not all accidents where a helmet would have helped involve cars. The first time I heard someone pushing helmets was 40 years ago when a college classmate broke her clavicle when her bike met broken pavement on a pedestrian/bike path. She informed everyone she knew that the helmet had saved her more serious injury.
I like the concept, but unfortunately it seems that my deep fears about folks with disabilities being forgotten about has come true. I’ve seen countless LimeBikes placed in the middle of sidewalks and blocking access to street ramps. For the average person, it’s probably not even noticeable, but it makes our city, which is already hard enough to get around for folks with mobility impairments, even harder to access. I’d love to see a clear and concrete solution and execution from the Mayor’s office before this gets further expanded in the city.
@Jim – I had the same fears from the start. If we’re going to have dockless bikes, we should have more bike racks around Newton and require Lime bikes to be parked in them whenever possible.
Time for Newton to get over itself. Stop trying to save the planet and start trying to make the quality of life better for Newton residents. If you want to bike, go buy a bike. Keep it in your garage and don’t mess up the streets and sidewalks and block people’s private property. Most of all, think things through before you act and set policy. What kind of message are you sending when you suggest people should be riding bikes without helmets? Get the marijuana out of our middle schools and high schools where more than 85% of kids are smoking and the schools ignore it. Stop making high school students pay to park. Stop making students pay for uniforms and after school programs. Where are your priorities?
I find it amusing that MMQC thinks I’m an unsafe cyclist. Perhaps you should actually ride with me. Those who have realize the opposite.
As I’ve said on many occasions, I do ride with a helmet (and have since 1982, long before they were part of bike culture). But that doesn’t mean they are the be all and end all.
We are a culture that believes the only way to protect ourselves and our families is to transport them encased in a ton of steel and plastic. That fear-based reaction comes with a cost.
I stop at traffic lights. Are there times when I judge my safety to mean that’
when traffic is stopped, it’s safer for me, on my bike, to maneuver through an intescetion? Yes, it is, because I’ve seen the drivers on their cell phones and I’ve had them try to speed around me when I am, legally, supposed to have the full lane and try to cut me off or gun the engine to get around me fast to take a right, nearly hitting me.
Pedestrians do the same thing. I’ve seen people run across the street out of fear, or tentatively take steps into a crosswalk and pray that they survive, or walk across walnut street not at crosswalks, or cross against lights when no one is coming.
Chuck – Reread MMQC’s posts again. She isn’t accusing you of anything, merely expressing a concern that the use of helmets is being downplayed by a few who would like the Lime bikes to be embraced without questioning clear safety issues. Helmet use is one that the schools reinforce with students regularly. It’s not helpful to have adults undermine the schools’ best efforts to encourage safe riding. Rather than giving permission for unsafe use of the bikes (forget the helmet), maybe a few highly publicized guidelines for making them easier to use safely are in order.
After the trial period ends, perhaps the city or the company (or whomever) can assess when/who/how the bikes are being used in Newton so that racks can be placed in the most convenient/high use spots and thereby increase their use. My guess is that high school students may be a great target population and the two schools could use a few extra racks. Another likely high use location would be the T/Commuter rail stops. Grocery stores may be a lower use location and hilly parts of the city may see less use of the bikes.
I’m not a biker and never will be, but do think it’s too bad when bikers and non-bikers are at loggerheads over issues that are easily resolved. Most pedestrians, motor vehicle drivers, and bikers in the city do so safely; the unfortunate few who don’t give everyone else a bad name.
When I see Lime bikes they are either being ridden with or without a helmet or parked on a sidewalk blocking a ramp or those with mobility impairments. One was parked across the street from my house on the berm turned horizontally to the street which was a good placement.
Our sidewalks are narrow, have trees planted in them at some places and many are in disrepair. The company when they collect them places them facing the street which takes up the most room on the sidewalk. They need to be horizontal to the street on the edge of the sidewalk, between two trees or on a berm.
More bike racks at middle and high schools are desperately needed anyway so that seems a no brainer but bike racks on sidewalks may take up too much room.
The Lime bikes have been designed for an average height rider. My son and two of my grandsons are over six feet and would need the seats to go higher. That’s a design flaw that they should consider correcting in the future.
I realized how much safer riders were when wearing helmets when in 1975 my neighbor’s child hit a pothole and went flying over the handle bars. She crushed the fron of her skull, contracted meningitis and never regained full mental capacity. My kids were very young but were already wearing helmets. Around that same time my daughter went too fast down the hill to the bottom our cul de sac, hit the curb and also flew over the handlebars. She knocked her front teeth up into her gums. Luckily it was pretty easily repaired and the helmet protected her skull.
As Jane says, the continuation of education of our young people needs to be supported by adults wearing helmets. Alas, many adults do not wear them. My son rides his bike just about everywhere and much to my consternation rarely wears a helmet particularly when it’s hot. My grandchildren have been taught to wear helmets on any of their moving contraptions but the middle one rarely wears one once he’s out of sight on his skateboard.
Wearing helmets or not is an on going problem and will continue to be one. MA law does not require anyone over 16 to wear a helmet. As much as I support wearing helmets, it’s impossible to convince every adult to wear one.
At the end of the pilot, Newton must at least solve the problems of placement of the bikes and the addition of bike racks at the appropriate places. I don’t see Newton talking about widening sidewalks except in Village Centers which doesn’t help much.
Chuck, I didn’t accuse you of being an unsafe bike rider but I do think that your hubris is detrimental to the biking community and to people who might be thinking about starting to bike in Newton.
After reading about the dangers of being ridden in a car without head protection, I’m going to try to make a point of wearing my helmet whenever I am ridden in a car.
https://www.monash.edu/muarc/our-publications/atsb160
https://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/the-bike-helmet-paradox
@Nathan,
You cited to a 20 year old Australian study concerning head injuries in automobiles, and another article that likewise references some rather old studies, acknowledging that there is a bit of a gap in data since it wouldn’t be ethical to ask bicyclists to participate in a study not wearing helmets. In the meantime, the auto industry has done quite a bit to reduce occupant injuries with side airbags for passengers which protect the head in a side-impact or T-bone crash, as well as changes to crumple zones and the way that the car absorbs the energy from the crash and transfers it through the passenger compartment. If you’re really interested, spend some time watching the Institute for Highway Safety crash videos. They’re quite enlightening. Seatbelts are still, by far, the greatest safety feature for occupants of cars.
If you want to seriously talk about helmets and crashes, perhaps this study done in 2016 will be useful. It is likewise from Australia: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/sep/22/bicycle-helmets-reduce-risk-of-serious-head-injury-by-nearly-70-study-finds
Traumatic brain injury is horrible – I’ve seen it first hand, from massive head trauma to global brain shearing. When a body in motion comes to a sudden stop, whether in a car crash or being knocked off of a bike, the internal organs keep moving; they bounce off of the skeletal structure until all energy has been expended. So picture your brain bouncing back and forth inside your skull. That’s what happens whether you’re in a car versus car crash or you flip over the handle bars of your bike. So I’ll say it again: You only get one brain.
I know teens who have suffered concussions by doing things like walking fast through a door and the door ran into a misplaced door stop. The door stopped, the teen didn’t. Concussion.
In another situation it happened in the pool doing the backstroke. In another it was getting into a car too fast and hitting a head on the roof.
By the logic above of “I know someone who got a head injury on a bike so everyone should wear a helmet” then we should all wear helmets all the time.
Sorry, my hubris is showing.
Lisap, since when has “old” science gone bad over time?
Do you advocate for the Netherlands or Copenhagen to impose mandatory helmet laws, as the article you cited recommended for Australia?
I was the first person on the scene to watch a man die from his head hitting pavement, in Sacramento when I was a college student. Despite that, when I biked in the Netherlands where the appropriate focus is on road safety, I did not wear a helmet – just like all of the other adults and teens riding.
Why are we not talking about making our streets safe for all users, so that we can be more like the Netherlands or Copenhagen?
Chuck,
I didn’t say “I know someone who got a head injury on a bike”. I do know someone who fell off her bike during a race and is a quadriplegic now, but I was trying to avoid anecdotal “I know someone who” other than to say without identifying the cause that I have seen traumatic brain injury first hand. I didn’t identify how it is I know people (multiple) who have suffered massive brain trauma – not concussions.
When people ride in cars without wearing seatbelts, there is a much greater chance that they will sustain serious or fatal injuries than if they are wearing seatbelts. Likewise, studies do establish that when people ride bikes or skateboards, if they are involved in a collision or a fall, their chances of suffering serious head or facial trauma are greatly reduced when they wear bike helmets. I’m not exactly saying anything novel or controversial here.
@Nathan,
“Since when has “old” science gone bad over time?”
The science doesn’t go “bad over time”. The science and the physics of collisions stay the same. It is the changes in available technology that impact our ability to survive crashes which change over time. I cited to recent (2016) studies, as opposed to 20 year old studies analyzing the risk of serious head and facial injuries and the use of helmets to reduce those injuries.
As for Copenhagen, lovely place and I like the way they have separate bike lanes which are set apart from the pedestrian sidewalks as well as from the driving lanes. Should they wear bike helmets there too? I tend to think that would be prudent since bikes to crash into each other.
I’m sorry to hear that you saw someone die from a TBI. I watched a cyclist die when he went head first into a car across from my house. It was horrible. I wouldn’t wish what you and I have seen on anyone, but that also doesn’t form my opinion. I agree that we should do much more to improve our roads and make them safer for cyclists. My husband bikes to work in the Seaport District year round and I fret each and every day. I would love to see safe bike routes all the way into Boston, but he would still, prudently, wear a bike helmet and gear to make himself visible.
But none of this changes my original point, which I’ll keep coming back to. You only get one brain. If you choose not to wear a helmet I’m not going to yell at you. If you have kids, I would hope you would set a good example for them by wearing a helmet, just like parents who drive should set a good example for their kids by stopping at cross walks for pedestrians, NOT TALKING ON THEIR CELL PHONES (sorry for all caps), driving at or below the speed limit and checking their temper before they get behind the wheel.
Jane! Stop This Crazy Thing!
– Brain injuries are horrible to live with
– Bike helmets can lessen the possibility of brain injury if you spill
– Worst case, bike helmets keep your brains from messing up the pavement
– Some people think everyone should wear bike helmets
– Some people like the wind in their hair and are risk aversive
– Some people have no hair – but let’s move on
– Some people think adults have a moral responsibility to set a good example for kids
– Some people think Science has a shelf life
– Some people think they know how others should live
It’s a beautiful evening, do we really need to continue this silly discussion?
@Nathan – are you serious? “since when has “old” science gone bad over time?” I’m a scientist, and I’ve seen major changes over my lifetime.
The chemistry texts I learned from in high school left me completely unprepared to help my son when his class was learning about the structure of the atom and how electrons move – and my high school chem teacher had us learn how scientist’s models of the atom had changed over time. Most of what I learned in bio is now considered simplistic and our understanding of the workings of our bodies is constantly being revised. I’ve lost track of the latest models of the universe I’ve seen come and go.
In the case of car crash data from 20 years ago, the results would likely still be accurate if the cars you drive and that are on the road with you are the same ones as 20 years ago. But safety features have changed, as have the materials cars are made of.
To those telling me how to ride my bike and how I should parent, do you also want to tell me what I should or shouldn’t wear on my bike? So that I don’t, you know, put myself in a situation that invites, in fact practically asks, to be hurt?
Full disclosure: I fully victim-wear-up, & require my kids to for Newton’s unforgiving streets. I hope people are satisfied.
Nathan and Chuck, I know many adults don’t wear bike helmets and also know it’s none of my business. What I don’t understand is the flippant attitude toward wearing helmets in general. They do protect from some major injuries so why not just own that sometimes you and other adults, like my son, don’t wear them without becoming defensive and making silly counter arguments.
Wear them, don’t wear them. We are all adults here.
Mayor Fuller, in her recent newsletter, has this update on Lime Bikes.
Lime Bikes Update
This past Sunday, 137 riders took 192 trips on the 156 Lime Bikes currently in Newton, and since the program was launched on July 24, 2,343 riders have taken 5,053 rides on the bikes. Keep riding!
Spin, the second company that was expected to join the program this month, has dropped out of the regional bike share, so as of now, Lime is the only company we’re working with.
Lime has also been reducing the number of bikes here. We started with about 280 bikes and now we’re at about 160. The City has limited Lime to 300 bikes in Newton for now, but Lime is allowed to have fewer based on ridership demand.
Please remember to park the bikes correctly so they aren’t blocking sidewalks, driveways, or crosswalks.
If you see a bike parked in the wrong place, contact Lime directly, or call Customer Service here at City Hall at 617-796-1000, or feel free to reposition the bike yourself.
@marti I think it stems from the way that the bike helmet argument is used by opponents of bike accommodations. It’s often shorthand for “those cyclists are unsafe so why should we build them a safe place on the road?”
What I read above was a bunch of people saying “this is a great idea BUT, I wouldn’t use it without a helmet” when that is exactly the problem. People would rather get in their cars than get on a bike without a helmet, and our job should be to encourage the opposite. We have peak-time traffic problems in this city, as well as transportation issues in general. The bike share is part of a solution to that problem. We have a society that is literally choking on its own fumes, and people are dithering about whether to wear a helmet.
It’s an excuse and one that, while it does add to safety, comes with a lot of other costs.
I am one of those who are moving Lime Bikes that are blocking sidewalks and other walkways everyday. While I do not understand why people leave these bikes in the middle of the sidewalk, they do demonstrating a complete disregard for those of us who actually walk places. If you are pushing a stroller you can stop and move something in your path but if you are mobility impaired you are out of luck. I have not seen many people riding them even though they are in the bushes and on many sidewalks (yes, for more than a day in most cases) with the exception of a couple of evenings in Newton Centre where groups of teens were using them for bike derbies-riding through the parking lots and up and down the streets-mostly going the wrong direction. No helmets and crashing into parked cars along the way. I was recently in St. Louis where Lime Bikes were being used in their wonderful. vast and mostly flat Forest Park and Lime Scooters in the city. The scooters were a little scary because riders would try to scoot around pedestrians and there were a lot of close calls and they would scoot in the street dodging traffic with no helmets. The sidewalks there are so much wider that the parking on the sidewalks was not as problematic.
“People would rather get in their cars than get on a bike without a helmet, and our job should be to encourage the opposite.”
Chuck, I respectfully disagree. As I said above, I wholeheartedly endorse measures to make biking much safer – I have a personal stake in it as my spouse commutes to Boston for work by bike year round (okay when it dips below 20 degrees he takes public transportation). Bringing along a helmet to wear is neither a great burden nor imposition, and I suspect that many if not most Lime Bike riders purposely seek out the bikes as opposed to picking one up by happenstance. Putting on your seatbelt when you ride in your car isn’t a great burden or imposition (and indeed, seatbelts are mandated by law). Adults are not required to wear bike helmets, but I think it would be very bad public policy to actively encourage people to the ignore the risks of riding without a helmet. There are also costs associated with TBI – great costs in fact.
Really Chuck? These bikes are an interesting experiment. And it seems we are discovering a few issues that are problematic … Safety/Lack of helmets, Placement in and around the city is haphazard and in the way of pedestrians.
People will work these problems out or they won’t. As I said before – Becuase of climate, because of topography, because of the tasks most of us are required to achieve each day, biking in Newton will never be a reliable and regular means of transportation.
Lime bikes are not a reasonable solution to make the slightest impact on air quality, traffic congestion or the rate of diabetes in Newton. They are a novelty. I’m happy to see them. Happy to see some are using them.
I’ve been a cyclist all of my adult life. Known by family and friends for traveling absurd distances and showing up places on my bike. I most often have not worn a helmet, but I would never advocate for others to not wear one.
Consumption, our market economy, our relationship with our environment, the sheer numbers of people on this planet is a much larger issue. I find your focus and obsession with limebikes, bike lanes, bikable walkable cities at all costs very odd.
The asininity of this thread and the comments by Chuck and Nathan are boggling my mind.
Mike – Do you have me confused with someone else? Of the items you mention, the only one that rings true about my 3 posts is that some people have no hair (that would be me) and they should move on (that would be me as well).
I’m channeling my inner Marti Bowen. Sometimes V14 goes off the rails and a post just strikes your funny bone. Whatever. 😉
Jane – I was afraid people wouldn’t get that ‘obscure reference’. Had NOTHING to do with you 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N3gyhgHhe8
Mike – That’s hilarious! The Jetson’s were after my cartoon watching days – never saw that clip before. I knew there had to be an explanation, but even without the video, it struck me as very funny. I do have a bit of hair now, BTW – at least a quarter of an inch! One friend told me I look like one of those uber confident intellectual women striding through Harvard Square. The description SO fits my personality ;).
Not the first thread I’ve hijacked. So carry on…
Lol Jane. So glad your hair is growing back. My kids say it looks like peach fuzz on me.
Mike, my kids watched the Jetsons which means I did too, but still didn’t get the reference. Loved the clip though and do remember it now.
Chuck, I had no idea the below was the problem you are wanting to solve. “What I read above was a bunch of people saying “this is a great idea BUT, I wouldn’t use it without a helmet” when that is exactly the problem. People would rather get in their cars than get on a bike without a helmet, and our job should be to encourage the opposite.“ NO.
I strongly disagree that anyone should advocate not wearing helmets when biking as a solution to anything. I don’t care if you do but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t still contend that helmets are safer. I would not bike without a helmet and wish my son wore his but really this is up to the judgement of reasonable adults. It’s not reasonable to me to attempt to persuade anyone to bike without a helmet.
I am an advocate of safe streets for everyone with wide sidewalks, shorter crosswalks, slower cars, smaller turn radius’s and protected bike lanes, preferably not beside moving cars but on the other side of parked cars or protected in another way. I am most definitely not an advocate for not wearing helmets. I can advocate for both at once.
@Jane & Marti – congrats on the hair return! When mine came back, everyone liked is so much better short that I ended up abandoning my decades of long hair. I hope the rest of you also recovers well and completely.
BTW … I assume there is are well-documented studies saying the lines of thin cones turning Waltham Street into an obstacle course is intended on slowing traffic? My experience, at least the first few weeks was ‘wtf am I supposed to do with this!?” I almost crashed a couple times – taking my attention off the road just trying to make sense of what was going on – I think they attract way too much attention and cause confusion. My .02 on that, not that you asked.
“I can advocate for both at once.” Marti hit the nail on the head. There is a lot of black and white thinking in V14 comments about issues such as this and development. It isn’t helpful. I’m pro-development and pro-biking but I end up feeling like I’m anti both after reading comments here sometimes.
You call yourself Mary Mary Quite Contrary and yet your contrariness surprises you?
Think about victim blaming in other social contexts & ask yourself if & how this is different.
When you hear of a bike/car crash fatality what’s the first question you ask, and why is that?
Nathan, you’re outdoing yourself with that question.
I say something like, “was anyone hurt,” how is the biker,” and other stuff like that. I would never ask was the biker wearing a helmet because my concern would be with their well being not with what they were wearing.
Nathan – my first question would likely be “how did it happen?” Yes, people often ask if the biker was wearing a helmet. But after a car crash fatality, isn’t one of the first questions usually “were they wearing a seat belt?” Seat belt use (or lack thereof) is a detail that is almost always included in news reports as well. Is that also victim-blaming?
@Mike C if you can’t deal with a few “thin cones” in the road maybe you should slow down or re-evaluate whether you should be driving. What if that were a cyclist or a pedestrian? Would you almost crash into them?
For those who don’t come north all that often, the city has created a bit of a slalom with flex posts on Waltham St. at Derby St., which is a major crossing for students walking to Franklin Elementary. My observation is that this installation has slowed traffic for the whole length of Waltham St. from Crafts to West Newton and was a great idea.
Nathan – You need to get a grip. I even threw you a lifeline, trying to lighten things up a bit but you continue to personalize this issue when no one is blaming you or any other biker for anything. It has to do with safe traveling. It’s likely that the people who support the use of bike helmets would never drive without using a seat belt, use crosswalks when available, and try to get from point A to Point B in a safe manner, no matter the means. It’s hard to understand why this is so terrible.
No one is trying to undermine the Lime bike initiative. They’re great – what’s to be against? But they are a new mode of transportation on our busy city streets and guidelines for their safe use should be a part of the package. The only other concern is where they’re left and that just seems like a startup issue. Folks will get the hang of it soon enough.
Doug, listen to your own words … A bit of a slalom … do drivers really need to maneuver something that they’ve never seen before … distracting them from the road pedestrians and bikers.
Introducing complexity and distraction to slow down traffic simply trades one problem for a different problem.
Go take a look at how many of these cones have been hit and how many are already missing because they’ve been run over.
I live directly on Waltham Street at Northgate. I’ve been here for 15 years. I work at home so I’m home a lot. Traffic has not slowed one bit.
Both my mom and my brother-in-law arriving at my home asked me what the heck it was and commented on how dangerous it is.
Drivers need recognizable instinctive roadways with clear uncluttered sightlines, not a mess of complexity.
Traffic calming measures like this are tried and true. They make you focus on the road and on driving. They’re also not designed to slow the entire street, just the point where pedestrians cross.
I wonder how parents who privately urged their kids to not wear hoodies after Trayvon Martin got killed, to avoid being profiled, felt about white men loudly dictating that very same advice.
I started this by saying there are probably studies … This one on Waltham Street, in particular, seems dangerous to me.
On Mt Auburn St there is a school zone and a large prominent, brightly lit sign that alerts drivers of their speed and that they are in a school zone at specific times of day – This sign has actually caused me to slow down on more than one occasion.
Mike – the purpose of those thin cones is not primarily to slow traffic (although that’s a bonus), but to narrow the lane to ensure that cars are in a single lane as they approach the intersection. The width of the road approaching that intersection enabled clueless/selfish drivers to try to pass vehicles that were stopped to allow pedestrians to cross. My understanding is that these are temporary, and a permanent solution was recently approved and is in the works.
Nathan – your analogy doesn’t work. The danger of wearing a hoodie comes not from any inherent danger caused by the act itself, but from the possible ignorant/violent perceptions and reactions of others. The wearing or not wearing of a hoodie *should be* a neutral act – it’s only the actions of others that make it dangerous. The same is not true with helmets, because the danger posed when riding a bike without a helmet isn’t just from vehicles/bad drivers – bike crashes can happen without cars involved at all (pot holes, wet pavement, sand, random blow outs, speed, etc.)
With that said, there is no law requiring those over 16 to wear helmets, so while I think helmet use should be encouraged from a public health standpoint, adult Lime Bike users can’t be forced to wear helmets any more than adults on private bikes can.
Nathan, are you indicating that cyclists are a marginalized minority dealing with police brutality? Your comparison is downright offensive and shameful.
I am saying that bike riders are a marginalized community. It is the one way in my life, by virtue of my identity, that I experience harassment and by which I understand that phenomena like micro-agressions are real and common.
But where did I implicate police brutality?
Wow. Your comment is beyond offensive to groups of people who suffer from REAL disenfranchisement. Because some people find cyclists annoying and believe that they should wear helmets, they belong to a marginalized group? Astounding.
And I meant to type stand your ground laws not police brutality. Insomnia catching up with me. Zzz.
Hi all,
I stopped using names or handles in replies intentionally because I am trying to avoid personalizing this distressing exchange.
If I implied anyone is lacking as a parent or is a lousy role model, my apologies.
Two important points of clarification regarding bike riders constituting a marginalized community:
1. As in other marginalized communities, there is a hierarchy of privilege. Black, brown and/or women riders get treated way worse then men like me.
2. A bike rider ceases being marginalized at the moment they step off their bike. This is not possible for other identities.
Here is a thoughtful 2-part blogpost exploring this topic: https://alittlemoresauce.com/2014/08/20/what-my-bike-has-taught-me-about-white-privilege/comment-page-6/
Nathan, you are the one who brought up Trayvon Martin and wearing hoodies as a comparison to those who bike being marginalized. Being black while wearing hoodies being used by whites as a reason to fear blacks is ignorant and wrong clearly. Advocates for wearing helmets are not being ignorant or wrong. They just have a different point of view than you do. Your analogies just don’t work.
Yes this is an unfortunate conversation mostly because you seem to take everything said about wearing bike helmets as an offensive statement about bikers instead of just another way to look at things. Your comments just circle around to another way to attempt to prove whatever your point has become ad infinitum.
No one cares if you don’t wear a bike helmet just because we may think they are safer.
To my fellow Newton residents, including those of you who remain anonymous (as a side note I feel like if you are going to weigh in on important topics you should go by your real name). There is much I would like to comment on in this thread but won’t.
Chuck and Nathan are thoughtful people working to make the world a better place in many ways including with their commitment to biking.
No one here mentioned the continuing assault of bicyclists using Winchester and Nahanton. Person or persons unknown for the past 4 1/2 months have been placing thumb tacks and electrical staples in the road leading to many, many blown tires. The cyclists with flat tires no doubt had their day ruined. But this is not just an inconvenience. Luckily, no one has been injured yet. But that is only a matter of time. There have been at least 6 times that 100’s of tacks have been removed from the road. The city has responded with weekly street sweeping and police patrols. This past week there was a tack attack in Needham. The anti-bike sentiment in this city is real (which I find frustrating and sad) and empowers people like those putting tacks down.
I just returned from 2 weeks in Denmark and Norway. The biking and other transportation infrastructure was amazing. I may need to move if the US can’t pull itself together.
But if they are advocating for safe biking, why are they downplaying the importance of wearing helmets? It really makes no sense to me. It doesn’t seem like smart advocacy to me.
Alicia, first commenters are allowed to be anonymous on V14. Its your right to give their comments less credibility but anyone can comment on any discussion.
I am an advocate for many things including safer streets for everyone including bikers and for bikers wearing helmets as a safety precaution, although I do believe adults can choose not to wear them if that is their preference. I’m not anti Bikes in any way.
This was actually a thread about Lime bikes but using them without a helmet became part of the discussion. The “tack attacks” (great term) are terrible and I’m glad the city has been responsive. I’m not sure what is empowering them other than the times we are living in at the moment when anyone with a grievance against liberals, immigrants, or anything else is acting out. To my knowledge we don’t know who has been endangering cyclists with the tacks.
I’m sorry you feel that you might leave this country if “if the US can’t pull itself together.” It reminds me of the “love it or leave it” sentiment. Nothing gets better that way.
What I think Chuck and Nathan are trying to explain is that it isn’t all about the helmet. The MOST important thing we can do as a society to make cyclists safe is to get more people cycling and to create safe PLACES for them to bike. Countries that have pushed HELMETS have done so mostly to the exclusion of anything else including the one thing we know will get people biking and keep them safe separated, protected bike infrastructure. Not surprisingly they have low numbers of people cycling.
Nathan and I taught for together for 2 summers, a camp for middle schoolers called Smart Streets, where we taught students about transportation. I can assure you he was diligent in discussing all matters of safety with the students including helmet usage.
What Alicia Bowman said.
Back to “How do you think Lime Bikes are working out?”-
In the week since I last commented on this thread my enthusiasm for Lime Bikes has been tempered.
With the reduction in the number of Lime Bikes available, I haven’t found one near the T in village centers, on the four occasions when I could use them. Lime Bike needs to re-locate bikes from non-dense neighborhoods back to village centers on a regular basis. I haven’t been seeing that.
I love the concept but as presently executed it’s too unreliable for anything but a lark…
@Terry,
Which is exactly why there should be designated docking stations. Then you would know where the bikes are!
And for those of you once again discussing the anonymous blogger issue….
If I were to change my name from TWT to say, “Pat Brown”, would that make me more credible?
With the exception of Greg, I don’t know any of you so as far as I’m concerned, you are all anonymous to me.
None of you know me but from day 1 of this blog, I have used TWT as my name. I’m just as credible as the rest of you. I just choose to keep my identity to myself.
Can we put this issue to rest once and for all please.
Thank you.
I generally eschew saying “what so and so said” but I’m making an exception: What TWT said.
@Alicia, I’ve been blogging as “Lisap” since way back when I started blogging at the Newton Tab. I think back then just about everyone was using first names and in one thread we had multiple Lisa’s posting. Greg asked us to differentiate ourselves because it was getting, understandably, confusing. So I picked Lisap, a college nickname from when I had a roommate named Lisa, and when Village14 came on the scene I kept the same user name. The administrators here know exactly who I am and since I’ve been contacted via email by bloggers here, some people haven’t had a hard time figuring out who I am.
Until the admin team decides to require full names, it’s really a non-issue imho.
A wonderful late Summer day to all.
Lisap
Alicia, I have nothing at all against Nathan and Chuck and agree they are both thoughtful and involved people, as are you. I just disagree about advocating adults not wear helmets. Of course, I also believe it’s none of my business what adults wear when biking.
I am not advocating that this country, state or city should push “HELMETS” to the exclusion of anything else. I am an advocate for safe streets for every one, including protected bike lanes as I said above. For example, I think it was a big mistake to put the bike lane in West Newton Square on the street side.
I agree that more safe areas for biking will lead to more people biking. We also need more education for drivers of cars and for cyclists about keeping everyone safe.
A big thanks to you and Nathan for teaching middle schoolers about safe streets. It’s great to start young to develop new attitudes about biking and driving safely.
I think the Lime Bikes are great. Sure – there are some kinks to work out. Like why have there been 2 of these parked on a lawn on Central Street for about 3 weeks? I’m so glad that people are using them. We need more people to embrace bike riding as means to get from point A to B. That being said, I hope that we do enforce helmet use on kids who use these bikes. IMHO it’s okay for an adult to choose not to use a helmet – (Yes – adults should set an example for kids) – but the point of these Lime bikes are to get people from point A to B – not necessarily long rides – short rides – to get to the supermarket, run errands or get to the train station). Kids – on the other hand, should be required to have a helmet. Not sure how to make that enforceable but overall – Lime bikes are a welcome addition to the City – (this coming from a person who biked from Seattle to San Francisco on a tandem on her honeymoon!!)
Hi all,
I needed to take a couple of days break from this site. I’m ready to re-engage and want to share a few thoughts.
– I should not have made a comparison between the biking community, which IS a marginalized community, and another marginalized community. That was a distraction and was unfair to the standalone issues People of Color face. I apologize.
– Any analogy is limited. Bike riders can step off a bike and shed their membership in a community of vulnerable road users, unlike other identities. Yet the same can arguably be said to be true for say, religion, or other communities that are joined by choice; yet we recognize that such minorities by choice have experienced systemic bias and discrimination. I maintain that bike riders are part of a marginalized community of vulnerable road users in Newton and in most of the US. The tack attack in Newton is a hate crime we uniquely experience, for example.
– I’ll bet that other regular bike riders here can share nearly daily experiences with the systemic road design indifference to all users (e.g. speed bumps without curb cuts, with cars that park next to them forcing bikes over them); micro-aggression by individuals (e.g., drivers inching out of driveways into your right of way, with full eye contact) and occasional overt aggression. I was shouted at to F*ck Off and Die on Glen Ave and Beacon Street earlier this year; intentionally driven off the road southbound approaching Quinobequin Road a couple weeks ago because I was staying left approaching Quinobequin vs the righthand highway on-ramp; and had to veer away from a delivery van driver who weaponized his vehicle against me on Washington Street near Adams St last year because I didn’t yield the right of way to him. In a letter to the Newton Tab a couple of weeks ago, a writer unabashedly describes how he weaponized his car to cut off a bike rider who’s behavior he objected to. Is using a car as a tool of brute force acceptable in Newton?
– I have never advocated for not wearing a helmet in Newton, nor have I minimized the importance of doing so in Newton. I don’t think one can find a comment in this thread from me where I do. In fact, not only don’t I advocate for not wearing helmets, I insist upon it, especially for young people. But I explain why: Newton is hostile to vulnerable road users. Our road system prioritizes cars above all else and is unforgiving and indifferent to safety concerns of people who choose to use a mode other than driving. Kids, if you ride without a helmet in Newton, you are putting your lives in large danger, and you cannot ride to school or to the village center to meet friends like kids do in other, developmentally advanced cities with safe, low-stress streets. It’s to my eternal regret that my partner and I have raised kids in a city where they were unable to experience the joy and safety of biking like kids in developmentally advanced cities do. Until and unless Newton decides to commit to safe streets for all, I will never advocate anyone on bikes not wear helmets. Not only that, if you are struck by a car, even if you did nothing wrong, if you were not wearing a helmet that will become the primary focus of attention.
– While I haven’t seen the statistics on Lime Bike usage, I am pretty sure that it is being held back from its potential mostly because we don’t have safe streets to ride them on. For example, on my road warrior commute along the Washington Street speedway, I see all the Lime Bikes lined up neatly every quarter mile or so, unused. If every single one of them had a helmet attached to them, I still find it hard to imagine inexperienced or curious potential bike riders using them on this speedway.
Nathan, welcome back.
I don’t know where these statistics come from but according to Mayor Fuller’s newsletter “This past Sunday [a week ago], 137 riders took 192 trips on the 156 Lime Bikes currently in Newton, and since the program was launched on July 24, 2,343 riders have taken 5,053 rides on the bikes.
I agree that helmets even if they were hanging on bikes wouldn’t increase ridership. That many drivers of cars find bikers annoying, think they are taking up space that belongs to them, resent any reason to slow them down to make streets safer, are rude and insensitive to cyclists. That others are contemptuous of cyclists and actively attempt to harm them. I agree that having protected bike lanes will increase the number of bikers and that not having helmets is a distraction from getting those safe bike lanes.
The education of young bikers as you and Alicia are doing is important but the city also needs someone to teach drivers of cars that they dont own the road even though they used to and some still think they do.
We agree on more things than not.
The addition of the flex sticks, as will the permanent structure, at the intersection of Lowell and Austin Street has slowed way traffic down and created a safer place for both cyclists and pedestrians. Drivers still complain about having to slow down. Them’s the breaks.
Those statistics come from Lime Bike. As part of the agreement with MAPC and the city, the data that Lime Bike produces goes to the city. This allows city planners to watch usage levels over time and understand how people are using the system.
Uber and Lyft do not provide this information to cities and towns, which makes it difficult to plan. Neither do other traffic apps like Waze. Google (which owns Waze) provides some data based on its traffic information.
Everyone should read Nathan’s comment above as it sums up the full discussion and the key issues.
If Lime Bike were just a private company that was failing to provide adequate head protection for its customers, it would be concerning enough. But the City is a de facto partner in Newton’s Lime Bikes, by virtue of permitting the company to conduct business [i.e. rent bikes] on City property. It’s only a matter of time before an un-helmeted Lime Bike rider suffers a head injury in Newton. I can remember several bike accidents that have occurred in my area alone, two of them unfortunately fatal. When that first head injury happens, Lime Bike is going to be sued and the City of Newton will be a defendant right along side.
Mike: what do you propose the city and/or Lime bike does about helmets?
Referring to cyclists ability to choose a different mode of transportation and avoid bias, Nathan writes:
Whyyy. Nathan, I vehemently disagree with you, and so does history. This is a conversation better had in person, but I find this sort of reasoning selectively equating and delegitimizing hatred against different groups of people, fashionable in certain political circles these days, to be extremely dangerous. I’ve found it’s never a good idea to rank or compare suffering.
I think this was touched upon earlier in this thread or another post, what happens when more vendors enter the market.
I was in San Diego last week which has Lime Bikes, and at least two other dockless vendors, docked Discovery bikes, and two or three vendors for electric scooters. There are bikes and scooters everywhere. If you are looking for a ride it is great although my wife and I had a long walk trying to find a Bird scooter with sufficient charge to try out, it was a lot of fun crushing along the bay.
With the proliferation of rides over the course of a year or so, the bikes and scooters generally were out of the way for pedestrians. So some of the issue we are seeing in Newton should naturally resolve themselves. I did hear from a city councilor that moving a bike to a better location does have the bike warning about calling the cops.
Few in San Diego, bikers or scooters, wore helmets. Perhaps looking at other locations can give insight into the real dangers we are likely to see Lime riders face here.
I don’t know, Greg. I’m not in the bicycle transportation business. But I do know it’s dangerous to ride without a helmet. So I think the City made a mistake signing on to this venture without a helmet solution. It’s up to Lime Bike to solve the problem. I’m just playing Nostradamus, and predicting the City ends up getting sued by an un-helmeted Lime Bike rider who is injured.
Mike: it’s also dangerous to wear a helmet that doesn’t fit right. Or one that was in an accident or was dropped, even if it doesn’t look damaged. And it’s not so great sharing lice or other things that might be lurking in a shared helmet.
Lime should not be providing helmets with its bikes.
You’re a civil liberties kind of guy. The best thing is for adults to be responsible deciding to wear a helmet and for making sure their kids follow the law.
Mike,
The only thing lime and the city can do is pop up a helmet warning when reserving the bike. This would probably cover them legally
Im sure they considered it, but didn’t want to scare away any $$
@Bugek– A warning might have negative legal consequences, because it’s effectively an acknowledgement from Lime Bike that riders should wear helmets that the company does not provide. I’m sure Lime Bike has insurance to protect itself from suits by injured riders. Gonna take a wild guess here, and say I doubt they named the City of Newton as co-insured on that policy.
I’m officially quitting with making analogies on this topic; Adam helped me out off-line to realize that that one was off the mark, too. My apologies (again).
Analogies aside, sweeping generalizations and motorists cursing at or threatening cyclists are real problems that are far too common around here. It always amazes me how transportation can bring out the worst in people.
@Greg– You’re 100% right. I am a “civil liberties kind of guy.” It may [or not] surprise you that I don’t believe it’s an appropriate function of government to require helmets for adults on bicycles or motorcycles. I feel the same way about seat belts in cars…
But this is an entirely different issue at hand. First, there’s the question of liability on the city’s part, because it’s permitting Lime Bike–a company that does not provide helmets, to run its business from city property. So if an un-helmeted rider receives a head injury, they are going to sue the city right along with Lime Bike…
I also believe there’s a question of morality here. There’s not an elected official in the city who would tell you it’s safe to ride a bike without a helmet. The Mayor even wore a helmet when she introduced Newton to Lime Bike. But our local government is supplementing this company that rents bicycles without helmets…
Again, I think bike sharing is a great concept. But it’s just plain stupid for anyone to ride without a helmet. The burden should be on Lime Bike to find a solution.
This has been a great post to which I have nothing to add because I don’t think I’ll be using a Lime Bike in the near or distant future. That said, someone should inform lets the Mayor the Company’s managers of this company that this post exists and the range of comments that have resulted. Quite varied, but almost all of them are thoughtful.
Mike,
This is the typical “growth at all costs” playbook from young tech companies skirting the rules
Amazon – no sales tax
Uber – ignoring local taxi laws
Facebook – stalking and selling user info
Bike sharing – providing just enough rope to hang yourself (eg scooters in some cities are hogging the side walk)
Well At least the tech companies will eventually provide us with cheap autonomous taxis one day, will definitely improve a lot of lives
@Adam, when it comes to accepting bicycles on city streets, motor vehicle drivers in Newton in my experience have gradually become more tolerant. I haven’t been assaulted or screamed at for maybe two or three years now. That’s an improvement, as it used to happen 1-2x a year.
In terms of driver education not much has improved — based on my experiences, many drivers still have no concept about road-sharing laws, and everyone breaks traffic laws with impunity.
For example, In recent weeks I’ve had a FedEx driver badly tailgate my bicycle (I was going the speed of traffic) then jam his van into the lane I was occupying, forcing me over into the door zone in busy downtown Newton Centre. He ran a red light for the grand finale. I’ve also been honked at a couple times by irate drivers for being in an intersection where I had right of way, and they had to stop at the stop sign. C’est la vie.
@Mike you raise a valid point, though my guess is that the city could be proven not liable in such a situation.
In New York City a user sued Citibike for damages that occurred when he was not wearing a helmet. The case was settled in May of 2017 as it was set to go to trial, but not before a judge issued a ruling that included the following:
“[The plaintiff] may not, however, seek to hold the City liable for what was a well-reasoned and studied determination made in the public interest. See Weiss v. Fote, 7 N.Y.2d 579, 588, 167 N.E.2d 63, 200 N.Y.S.2d 409 (1960) (“[C]ourts should not be permitted to review determinations of governmental planning bodies under the guise of allowing them to be challenged in negligence suits.”).”
https://recreation-law.com/2018/02/22/corwin-et-al-v-nyc-bike-share-llc-et-al-238-f-supp-3d-475-2017-u-s-dist-lexis-29034/
To be fair, this is New York law (and specific to New York City code) and there are probably differences locally, but it does provide an example of why the city may not be liable in such a situation.
@Dulles The delivery trucks are getting more ubiquitous and with that, more aggressive about where they park. Just last week I saw a delivery car parked on Walnut St in Newtonville – INSIDE the striped area between the northbound and southbound lanes. The driver had left the delivery car there, had run across the northbound lanes to deliver his item to a retail store, and as I saw him, was running back across traffic to recover his car, which had been left empty (and facing south) in that striped off-limits section.
Back to Lime: I’m wondering if, in order to have this bike-share arrangement with the City, Lime is donating a percentage of income (or some flat fee) to City bicycle-safety efforts, such as striping bicycle lanes, installing bike racks, and a host of other safety measures that require funding.
Or free helmet distribution.
Seems to me that they should, given they’re using city property – sidewalks, city berms, etc., – as their staging – and as funding for road improvement for bicyclists is minimal and to a lower income person the cost of a bicycle helmet can be prohibitive.
What’s the deal?
@Chuck– I think the case in NY may give Newton some protection. I appreciate you doing that research. But rather than either of us guessing about the legal implications, the officials who authorized Lime Bike should know exactly how much exposure the City has from un-helmeted riders. It’s something that should have been fully discussed before giving Lime Bike the go ahead. Perhaps that was done. I don’t know. This may not be an issue at all. But I’d like to hear from someone inside City government how they addressed the liability issue when they authorized Lime Bike to run their business from public property.
Jane, the “space” in the middle of walnut street in Newtonville has jokingly been referred to as ups parking in public meetings for years. Roadway design drives people’s behavior. That space will be put to better use in the future.
Jane H, I see that scenario on Walnut on a regular basis.
Since there is no law in MA saying adults must wear helmets, which is fine but me, it seems there would be no basis for a law suit against the city. Although this has become such a litigious society where filing lawsuits just to get some sort of settlement happen everywhere, you never know. I still don’t think they would win in court and I don’t think this situation has anything to with morality.
I do think worrying about lawsuits with every new thing introduced into society stops progress. I haven’t seen many Lime bikes around lately but just today I have seen 6 people riding their own bikes. There ages ran the gamut. I particularly liked the electric assisted bike a guy around my age was riding.
I was stepping back from commenting as, although I am a frequent cyclist, I thought I might take the opportunity to ride a Lime Bike before I jumped in. I still haven’t had that chance, but…
– As to the bikes being left places, that seems to be a thing that will be sorted out, between people becoming more aware of and used to the bikes being around, and the company moving the bikes when left somewhere less-than-ideal. I am told they will come move a bike within 7 days of it begin left somewhere, which seems like a long time, but a friend kept an eye on his bike in his ‘hood and it was gone within 5 days.
– I agree with those that say more bike racks will help reinforce bike placement behaviors
– I get the complaints about the inadequacy of the bike for more hilly terrain. I suspect that we will find a pattern of more frequent usage (along Washington St between those villages, for instance- which brings up the need to make that street more bike-friendly)- but getting up the hills at Centre and Chestnut, it would be nice to have a solution for making that a little less daunting for the casual riders these bikes should entice.
– I am an adamant helmet-wearer. That said, I have ridden the docked bikes in Boston and, not usually having a helmet handy, rode without. I made sure to stick to bike paths and lanes where possible, and took extra care to be aware of traffic and surroundings. Each time I did that, it was just fine- and I am aware of studies that bring into question the absolute need for helmets. I know the docked bike companies have experimented with ways to distribute helmets at the docks, but I don’t think any of those attempts ever stuck. There may simply be no great solution for that. There may be one that hasn’t been invented yet.
– As Groot points out from his travels, as people become accustomed to them, they will use the bikes more and they will become a daily part of the city to the point we don’t give them a second thought. I can see that, but I guess we’ll see how the usage of the bikes evolves.
Overall, I like these things, and am eager to see how the usage, the amenities (lanes/racks etc) and views of the service evolve over time (perhaps to be picked up again after the winter likely puts a temporary chill on this topic)
@Marti etc., I hear you.
I do think part of the agreement between the city and LIME should require Lime to provide free or subsidized helmets to residents in Newton who cannot afford helmets and who want to ride bicycles. I have not seen anything as to what type of agreement was struck between the city and Lime. I would like to know.
Also for sure bicycling in Newton can be made safer by proper striping, reducing blind visibility areas, creating bike trails around some of our city parks, and so much more. If Lime bicycles are going to be left, for days at a time, on city sidewalks (today I saw two huddling over a fire hydrant) while we’re also trying to make it safer for pedestrians to walk, then the city should be requiring Lime to turn over a portion of their income to funding that does this.
(We also went to a store somewhere that had a helmet recycling program: Bring in your old helmet and get a new one with X% off… As we know, the materiel of helmets deteriorates over time so it’s questionable how effective the helmets you and I have on our heads is.)
Which reminds me – it’s time to shell out another hundred bucks for a new helmet.
Lime’s TOS includes:
12.3. Helmets; Safety : Lime advises You to wear a helmet at all times while using any of the Services, Products, and/or related equipment, whether required by law or not.
12.3.1. Lime recommends that You wear a Snell, CPSC, ANSI or ASTM approved helmet that has been properly sized, fitted and fastened according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
12.3.2. If wearing a helmet is required by the laws, rules, regulations and/or ordinances applicable to the area in which the Product is operated, You agree to comply with such laws and regulations at all times.
12.3.3. You agree that neither Lime nor the Released Persons are liable for any injury or death suffered by You while using the Services, whether or not You are wearing a helmet at the time of injury.
(“Released Persons” means, collectively Lime and all of its owners, managers, affiliates, employees, agents, representatives, successors, and assigns, and (ii) every sponsor of any of the Services and all of the sponsor’s owners, officers, directors, affiliates, employees, agents, representatives, successors, and assigns.)
As a former technical writer who has written so, so many words that no one will ever read, I always urge people to RTFM – or in this case, the TOS. (Yes, I know having this stuff in the TOS doesn’t prevent anyone from filing a suit, but it does make prevailing more complicated.)
https://www.li.me/user-agreement
One further comment on the parking in the middle of Walnut street. Yes, it’s been happening for years, and the trucks in question appear to be serving all of the businesses of that strip. These businesses need the ability to load somewhere, but (in addition to being an active roadway) that space is directly adjacent to the crosswalk , blocking visibility for pedestrians and drivers alike. Is there any reason why we can’t enforce that as a no parking/loading zone now? I’m not aware of the collision statistics at that site, but as a city I fear we have been more lucky than smart so far there.