In April La Jolla Parks and Beaches, Inc. once again grappled with the issue of dockless bikes.
\nDockless bikes, accessible by a smart-phone app, have been infiltrating San Diego neighborhoods, including the Jewel. However, all four existing dockless companies \u2014 Bird, Mobike, Limebike and Ofo \u2014\u00a0 say they haven\u2019t actually launched their business models yet in La Jolla.
\nThe sudden appearance and proliferation of dockless, however, has led to safety fears and calls from some to halt their spread until they\u2019re properly regulated.
\n\u00a0LJPB board member Bill Robbins offered a suggestion on how best to deal with the vexing issue.
\n“The easiest thing to do would be to have La Jolla-branded bike racks, and ask the city to install them on a consistent basis throughout La Jolla,” he said.\u00a0
\nRobbins has been meeting with other La Jolla civic reps to develop a joint resolution on dockless bikes, which might lead to adopting standardized regulations governing their safe use.
\n“None of us actually knows the answer yet,” pointed out Robbins. “We want to get on the same page working for consistent regulations and a cost-effective approach.”
\nRobbins noted it seems strange that the four dockless companies in town “all claim to be competitive, yet they all showed up in town all at once.”
\nNoting he is not “anti-bike,” Robbins reiterated that dockless companies should be required to be properly licensed, pay their own way and their fair share of taxes, and that they shouldn\u2019t be publicly subsidized.
\n“I\u2019ve asked the dockless companies questions about [required] taxes, and they didn\u2019t know the answers,” Robbins said.
\n“The trick is to get together a list of best practices, and we\u2019re late in the game,” said LJPB president Ann Dynes.
\n“Shouldn\u2019t the City be collecting taxes on the use of them?,” asked LJPB board member Judy Halter. “The City should have the opportunity to generate revenues.”
\n“If they\u2019re for sale it would be taxed, but not for rentals,” answered Robbins.
\nColleague John Shannon said there is a great deal of venture capital money behind the launching of dockless bikes in San Diego.\u00a0
\n“Birds cost $400 apiece and, with their business model, they make three times that per year per scooter,” he said. “These are extremely lucrative.”
\nDynes made a resolution stating that, “We want to see proper regulation of these forms of personal transportation.”\u00a0
\n“We should suggest our concerns about sidewalk safety and clutter,” noted board member Mary Ellen Morgan. “Now we are being asked to react to this [bad] behavior \u2014 which really isn\u2019t fair.”
\n“That would certainly be a part of it,” agreed Dynes adding, “We\u2019re not here to develop these [regulatory] rules.”
\nDynes said she would send the group resolution calling for tighter regulation of dockless bikes to Councilmember Barbara Bay and Mayor Kevin Faulconer\u2019s office.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In April La Jolla Parks and Beaches, Inc. once again grappled with the issue of dockless bikes. Dockless bikes, accessible by a smart-phone app, have been infiltrating San Diego neighborhoods, including the Jewel. However, all four existing dockless companies \u2014 Bird, Mobike, Limebike and Ofo \u2014\u00a0 say they haven\u2019t actually launched their business models yet […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":279386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"La Jolla Parks and Beaches revisit what do with dockless bikes: Branded bike racks?","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}