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Toronto Bike Share

The former operator of Hamilton's Bikeshare system, a non-profit, is doing an online fundraiser (gofundme) to allow it to take over the service it operated until 2019 when Uber took over

www.gofundme.com

Save SoBi - Continue the bike share operations, organized by Hamilton Bike Share Inc .

The SoBi bike share system in Hamilton needs your help to kee… Hamilton Bike Share Inc . needs your support for Save SoBi - Continue the bike share operations
www.gofundme.com www.gofundme.com

Their goal is $400,000

In the first 3 hours, they've raised a bit over 5k.

Big mountain to climb, but not a bad start.
 
robmausser said:
Brampton absolutely takes the cake. They will forever be known as the city that was offered a FREE, 1 billion dollar LRT by the province and were like "nah, no thanks"
Click to expand...
They wanted it their way, what they forgot was that with the province 100% funding it, the city's input is irrelevant, that it was "my way or the highway".

salsa said:
That was one vote. In my view that does not dismiss the sustained investments that they made toward Brampton Transit year-after-year that has resulted in the impressive ridership growth that we've witnessed, while Hamilton transit went in the opposite direction under the numerous failings by their leaders. Based on outcomes alone, Hamilton did way worse.
Click to expand...
Brampton Transit is so overcrowded, that it was violating laws many times a day due to overcrowding during the post-secondary school year, and this year the increase in hours is below population growth.
 
So where's that dude that was constantly writing essays in this thread about how much better SoBi was than Bike Share Toronto now?
 
Wm Perkins Bull said:
They wanted it their way, what they forgot was that with the province 100% funding it, the city's input is irrelevant, that it was "my way or the highway"
Click to expand...

City input was relevant, but everything they asked for had a higher price-tag, sometimes 800% higher like the tunnel option, without offering to pay the difference.

Metrolinx took the only cheaper option Brampton presented which was an earlier termination point.
 
rbt said:
City input was relevant, but everything they asked for had a higher price-tag, sometimes 800% higher like the tunnel option, without offering to pay the difference.

Metrolinx took the only cheaper option Brampton presented which was an earlier termination point.
Click to expand...
When your parents tell you they will 100% pay for you to get a new Honda Civic, and you demand a G Wagen, and they retract the offer.
 
WislaHD said:
Plan C Council vote?
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SoBi ran a successful GoFundMe + Hundreds of thousands of donations by residents. About $70K GoFundMe and about $200K business donations outside GoFundMe + $140K expected revenues.

ca.gofundme.com

Save SoBi - Continue the bike share operations, organized by Hamilton Bike Share Inc .

The SoBi bike share system in Hamilton needs your help to kee… Hamilton Bike Share Inc . needs your support for Save SoBi - Continue the bike share operations
ca.gofundme.com ca.gofundme.com

I think it is one of the first time in the world -- that I know of any bikeshare, in the world, a shutdown bikeshare successfully resurrected by fundraiser / donations -- are there any precedents?
Bikes will reactivate once HBSI signs new contract with MobilityCloud Inc. (AFAIK, now divorced from Uber/Jump), the operator of www.socialbicycles.com and the apps running in 40 cities.

We protested by locking bikes all over City Hall property, and sidewalk-chalking the whole city hall.

www.thespec.com

A SoBi deluge at Hamilton City Hall protesting end of bike share

Riders locked the bikes to forecourt hand rails and light standards
www.thespec.com www.thespec.com

Given the loss of hope by many, SoBi was a beacon of hope so many citizens opened wallets despite these being financially starved times. Everybody uses them, from people like me (homeowner + carowner + bikeowner) all the way to our underpriveleged friends, at all income levels, all ethnicities, and so on. The fleet is in the wards of most need. So it was an affront for the City to shut the system down on us so suddenly on such an egalitarian system!!! For only pennies, any resident could ride 1-way, cheaper than infrequent HSR bus, and it was a much needed transport supplement during COVID. It gave people hope.

Even some people started thinking about moving away from SoBi, being the last straw.

1591293512257.png


So....
Plan A - Uber honor contract until Feb 2021, but they dropped an atomic bomb with a notice of contract cancellation
Plan B - Lower city wards 1 to 3 unamiously wanted to use their own area rating tax funds. But outside wards defacto-vetoed. Rarely this happens to area-rated-fund initiatives.
Plan C - Hail Mary Fundraising (donations)! They came flooding in a mere 3 days, embarassing the city hall into multiple unamious bike votes on #BikeDay.

The breakdown of funding that has now been approved:

1591293776080.png

(Since this, the GoFundMe broke the $70,000 barrier)

Famous people like The Arkells Band made donations, and promoted their followers to donate to the GoFundMe too. Which still operates, as $400K only operates to February 2020. We still need angels/sponsors to keep it operating beyond February 2021, but at least Hamilton bought-out the original Uber contract period. Uber gave no advance notice of not honoring their contract thru February 2021, causing the very mad scramble for Plan B and then Plan C. So they're still fundraising to get a bit more safety margin above 400K.

Not All Other Fleets Are As Lucky: 20,000 Being Crushed In Other Cities
If only we could afford to buy up those JUMP bikes being scrapped elsewhere, selling to other non-Uber fleets, instead of the scrap metal dealer. They are destroying unwanted JUMP bikeshare by the thousands in a crushing machine (photos) Which is very, very, very sad. --
Over 20,000 compatible bikeshare bikes are being demolished. If only we could purchase them at fire sale prices. The software in these bikes are actually compatible with the Hamilton Bike Share infrastructure (it uses the same rear PIN pad with GPS unlock), with the right firmware installed on them. If only Uber/LIME sold these to the independent SoBi fleets....

Thank our lucky stars we still own our own SoBi (JUMP) bikes, and the app/cloud is outside of Ubers' hands at the moment.

Now yesterday, it was a unamious council vote for SoBi resurrection, and a unamious council vote for Keddy Access Trail (the jersey barried multiuse trail up the Claremont Access)

Great Bike Day in an otherwise dumpster fire year.

But no thanks to concil theatrics (sigh).
 
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mdrejhon said:
We protested by locking bikes all over City Hall property, and sidewalk-chalking the whole city hall.
Click to expand...
How does one pull a stunt like that without incurring huge charges on the Sobi bikes for not returning them to the docking stations within a short time?

1591297907003.png

source
 
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salsa said:
How does one pull a stunt like that without incurring huge charges on the Sobi bikes for not returning them to the docking stations within a short time?

View attachment 249504
source
Click to expand...

SOBI bikes do not require 'docks'. You can leave them anywhere in the zone.

From the website:

Pick up any bike from any hub and return it to any other hub. You can even lock a bike outside of a hub (eg to a post or regular bike rack within the service area) for a $1 convenience fee!
 
salsa said:
How does one pull a stunt like that without incurring huge charges on the Sobi bikes for not returning them to the docking stations within a short time?
Click to expand...
SoBi is a dockless system with hubs / stations.

In another perspective, it is a "dock-optional bikeshare system".
There's just simply a $1.00 "penalty" (er, "convenience fee") when you dock them at poles or ordinary bike stations. SoBi have an electronic U-bar that can "dock" anywhere.

That way, SoBi never had the "China Bikeshare Mess" problem. The SoBi stations are geofenced, and the charge is instant if you don't dock at a station (automatic $1.00 immediately charged to your account) so most people dock them, but it's awfully convenient docking to a parking meter when running to catch a bus.

For City Hall, later the same day, a SoBi employee configured the entire city property one gigantic dock, eliminating the fee.

There are many ways I used this convenience. Sometimes I caught a missed Hamilton #16 Express by catching a SoBi from Hunter GO to Jackson Square Mall, to intercept the GO bus that I just missed... Willingly paying the $1.00 penalty to dock a SoBi to a parking meter on Main street. It's just a simple U-bar docking system that will work with all poles. Other times, I used it for roundtrip convenience to a location far away from a SoBi dock. There was also a credit of 75 cents if you found an off-dock bike and rode it back to a station. So I could also piggyback on this as a roundtrip 25 cent convenience fee. 1-way to an offdock destination and park there ($1 fee), spend a few hours, and 1-way back (75c credit). Assuming nobody else takes the bike in between.

90% of the time I "dock" at a station, but I love the convenience of docking anywhere it's legal to park a bicycle.

This convenience feature was commandeered to protest by docking them all over City Hall property, there was well over 100 bikes parked.
 
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Prior to all this, Hamilton was talking about expanding the system. IIRC specifically to the east towards Stoney Creek and unto Dundas.
 
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