Month: December 2019

Geekwire reports that the carshare company will shut down across North America in February. Cars will start disappearing well before then.

This step is not surprising. Lime recently shut down their similar Limepod service. ShareNow itself is a merger from weakness of two previous competitors. Recent tinkering with the fee structure was a likely signal of operational problems. Only Zipcar, with a membership fee and slightly longer rental periods, remains.

Meanwhile, Limebike is using the December expiry of its permit to punt on the unprofitable winter season, coming back in the Spring when Seattle starts allowing electric scooters. If other cities’ experience is an indication, the scooters will dominate and the bikes will wind down. Only Jump remains as a bikeshare option this winter.

This is an open thread.

Since it dropped right before Thanksgiving, I worry not everyone saw Alon Levy’s excellent piece in Streetsblog on fares and fare enforcement. The proximate reason for the piece is New York’s plan to spend a bunch of money on fare enforcement that’s disproportionate to the actual loss of revenue involved. As per usual, the piece has lots of international comparisons and some good lessons for Seattle.

First, from time to time some Seattle observers have suggested that Sound Transit ditch the current proof-of-payment system and install fare gates at Link stations. This would be expensive, impractical for open-air stations, and wouldn’t work at all for RapidRide. Also, New York has fare gates and, well… see the previous paragraph. Levy writes:

New York itself may have an excuse to keep the faregates: its trains are very crowded, so peak-hour inspections may not be feasible. The question boils down to how New York crowding levels compare with those on the busiest urban proof-of-payment line, the Munich S-Bahn trunk. But no other American city has that excuse. Tear down these faregates.

What’s more, the fare inspection should be a low-key affair. The fine in Berlin is €60. Inspectors who can’t make a citation without using physical violence should not work as inspectors.

Indeed.

• Peter Rogoff gets an “excellent” (not “outstanding”) job evaluation ($).
• ECB checks in on Alex Pedersen’s first few weeks in office. Not great!
• Republicans want to gut the general fund to subsidize highways deferred by I-976.
• University Place Mayor Kent Keel is the new ST Board Chair. Dow Constantine vice-chair.
• Sound Transit open to cutting car tabs ($), but they want to make up the revenue hole.
• Northgate Pedestrian Bridge construction begins Jan. 13th.
• Bellevue reaches the limits of car capacity ($).
• Landslide south of Tacoma cancels Amtrak runs ($); Pt. Defiance Bypass would have avoided it. It’s incredible that there is still no firm plan to start using the new track.
• Limebike taking a strategic pause for the winter.
• There’s a $40 bus to Crystal Mountain.
• Gov. Inslee releases his 2020 transportation budget proposal.
• How ride-hail companies could be helpful to cities.

This is an open thread.