Bike-sharing company bailing out of Quincy leaves trail of questions

ofo bikes piled high
Image via China Daily/Reuters

– News covered by Quincy Quarry News with commentary added.

Bike-sharing company bailing out of Quincy leaves trail of questions

As reported previously by Quincy Quarry, startups from China and Silicon Valley have been engaged in a global war to hook us on new forms of urban transportation.

Now, however, at least some local governments are also looking to be collateral damage.

This past week city officials from Quincy, Cambridge and Somerville were all dealing with the fallout from unexpected moves by companies that rent out shared bikes and electric scooters to local residents for just a few dollars per ride to ride around town.

Until this week, ofo – a 4-year-old Chinese company with $2.2 billion in investor funding – operated a bike-sharing program in Quincy with about 250 bikes; however, on Wednesday, ofo abruptly decided to shut down all but a few of its United States operations, as well as laid off most of its American employees.

Casualties of worldwide bike war
Image via Reuters

“We got caught up … in a larger macro-economic situation,” said Chris Cassani, the director of the City of Quincy’s Department of Traffic, Parking, Alarm & Lighting.

“I was sitting on my couch Wednesday night looking at WSJ.com and saw an article that said they were leaving,” Cassani said. 

Mr. Cassani said he then called an ofo contact and so learned that its Quincy operations were was being discontinued. 

Cassani added that he is still waiting for ofo to come pick up its bikes from the streets of Quincy.

WSJ.com reported that “… growth was slower than expected in the U.S., where human-powered bicycles have proven less popular than ofo and other backers expected.  Ridership in many U.S. cities is well below what the companies need to break even, said former ofo employees.”

Also on Friday morning, residents of Somerville and Cambridge awoke to find dozens of electric scooters sprinkled around their cities’ streets.  The scooters are owned by Bird Inc., a Silicon Valley startup that has raised $415 million in venture capital in three separate rounds since February.

The scooter company did not warn officials in either city that it was coming.

“The city does not have any kind of contract or agreement with Bird scooters and was not aware of the rollout of the program,” said Lee Gianetti, director of communications for the City of Cambridge. 

Somerville officials have also said they were caught off guard.

A Bird spokesperson confirmed the launch of its scooters in Cambridge and Somerville, but did not answer questions about why it declined to work with local governments.

Bikes littering the sidewalks in Swampscott’s Central Square
A Spenser Hasak/liveitem.com image

Additionally, both Lynn and Swampscott have suffered problems with Ant and ofo bikes ending up abandoned willy-nilly on its streets.

Scott Mullen, Lime’s director of expansion in the Northeast, criticized operators like Bird and ofo for damaging the reputation of all bike-sharing companies. 

“Actions like this distract from the larger impact these vehicles can have and complicates the landscape for those of us who value deep collaboration with cities,” said Mullen.

As was noted previously within Quincy Quarry coverage, ofo found itself in trouble over a lobbying dispute in Florida last year and was then expelled from The North American Bikeshare Association for violating the association’s code of conduct. 

Bird and ofo — along with other well-funded startups, including Lime, Spin and Mobike — claim to fill gaps in urban transportation systems with their “dockless” model of bike and scooter sharing.

Unlike the more familiar Blue Bike system (formerly known as Hubway), which requires riders to return their shared bikes to centralized docks, the new generation of companies allows riders to leave their bikes anywhere, locking and unlocking them with the tap of a smartphone button.

Quincy police dive team pulls a dockless bike out of the drink
A Quincy Police Department photo

A handful of cities, including Quincy, piloted a dockless bike-sharing system with ofo last fall.

Only Quincy, however, appears to have gone on to launch a full dockless program with ofo.

Fifteen other Greater Boston cities collaborated with the Metro Area Planning Council (“MAPC”) to launch a cross-border bike-sharing program.  MAPC chose Lime and Spin to operate the program and to date Lime has rolled out bikes in six of the cities.

Quincy Quarry disclaimer

Source: Bike and scooter-sharing startups leave trail of questions in local cities