Bikeshare Paradigms, User Perceptions, and the Urban Experience: A Comparative Analysis of Mobike Shanghai & Citi Bike NYC A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Architecture and Planning COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in Urban Planning by Qigao Wang May 2018 Advisor: Dr. Weiping Wu | Reader: Jonas Hagen Abstract Bicycle sharing schemes have gone global and the number of shared bicycles in use has ostensibly more than doubled over the past two years. Two general paradigms of bikeshare are currently competing for resources as well as hearts and minds of potential customers. Dockless bikeshare (best represented by Mobike Shanghai) and docked bikeshare (best represented by Citi Bike New York) are opposites in many regards, but their goals tend to dovetail. This study addresses the similarities and differences of these bikeshare paradigms, investigating their impacts on users’ experiences of their respective urban milieus and the antecedents and correlates of user perceptions, based on survey questionnaires deployed in Shanghai and New York. This study finds that dockless bikeshare shows advantages over docked bikeshare, manifested in a greater diversity of ridership among participants, more substantive perceived effects on users’ relationships with their urban environment, and an overarching importance of convenience to user perceptions. The projected expansion of bikeshare, especially dockless bikeshare underscored the timeliness of this study. By offering future directions for researchers and policymakers, this study will thus aid interested parties in decision-making process with regard to bikeshare support and implementation. i Contents List of Figures iii Introduction 1 Background 6 Literature Review 15 Methodology 29 Findings 38 Discussion 52 Conclusion 62 References 65 Appendix: Survey 79 ii List of Figures Image 1: Bikeshare, Compared 5 Chart 1: Demographics 40 Chart 2: Time to Find & Frequency of Use 42 Table 1: Reported Bikeshare Impact 45 Chart 3: Time to Find & Interest in Paradigm Shift 49 Chart 4: Bikeshare Strengths & Interest in Paradigm Shift 50 iii Introduction Bicycle sharing schemes have gone global and the number of shared bicycles in use has ostensibly more than doubled over the past two years. Two general paradigms of bikeshare are currently competing for urban resources as well as the hearts and minds of potential customers. The goals of dockless bikeshare (best represented by Mobike Shanghai) and docked bikeshare (best represented by Citi Bike New York) tend to dovetail, both aiming to influence local culture toward greener and more sustainable ways of transportation and living. However, the user experience with dockless and docked bikeshare can be divergent. Popularity and prevalence of bike-sharing vary from place to place. In China today, dockless bike-sharing companies have been likened to the Uber of bikes (Huang, & Horwitz, 2017). They have fundamentally altered how cities move as well as how people interact and connect. The unprecedented scale of urbanization in China has facilitated considerably more rapid implementation of urban experiments like dockless bike-sharing (Seto, 2013). Moreover, the lax regulatory apparatus in urban China has enabled cutthroat competition in these spaces— official industry standards and regulations were not codified until July of 2017 (Xinhua, 2017). Elsewhere, bike-sharing has been less noteworthy. In New York City, for instance, bike-sharing has been an expensive proposition largely hindered by financing and regulation.2 As more global cities move forward in an effort to transform local culture and promote bike-sharing, it is imperative to learn from users’ experiences and perceptions of Shanghai and New York’s bike-sharing. Getting more people on bikes and out of cars can ease congestion and 2 CitiBike bikes cost in excess of $6000 per bike (Shapiro, 2017), representing a significant hurdle for an efficacious largescale roll-out thereof which can both meet New York’s demands and find reason to exist outside of either highly gentrified or, at least, highly capitalized areas. Moreover, New York has been quick to consider and pass new regulations to ensure that negative effects are not felt, yet this invariably retards progress. - 1 - invigorate areas that might have previously been otherwise inaccessible, and thus is a noble endeavor in terms of environmental stewardship, community building, public health, and even modern urban development.. A comparative analysis of development of bikesharing in Chinese urban agglomerations and New York City can will shed light on the divergent consequences of two models of bikesharing. This study addresses the similarities and differences of these bikeshare paradigms, investigating the antecedents and correlates of user perceptions as well as their impacts on users’ experiences of their respective urban milieus. The purpose of this research is therefore two-fold: first, to establish an understanding of Citi Bike and dockless bike-sharing in China (specifically, Shanghai), and, second, to help inform interested parties with regard to making effective decisions in the bike-sharing apocalypse which may very well descend upon New York City in the near future. Citi Bike recently celebrated 50 million trips since its 2013 launch on 10,000 bikes, yet, as of August, there were already 1.5 million shared bikes in Shanghai alone (Manskar, 2017; Horwitz, 2017). There is a place for bike-sharing in this world, especially insofar as it can bring positive benefits to cities. Still, negative outcomes, such as sidewalk congestion and potential environmental burden, must be closely investigated, monitored and mitigated. In terms of this study, New York City represents the forerunner that adopted early but never quite got it right, while Shanghai should be regarded as the risk-embracing source of what-not-to-dos and this-works-toos. The key expectation is that the profligacies with bike-sharing of Shanghai and a multitude of other Chinese cities may be understood as a public policy initiative investigation on steroids. As such, this study looks at Citi Bike in New York and Mobike (as an embodiment of Chinese bike-sharing—including competitors like Ofo and others—in general) in Shanghai for - 2 - lessons regarding the contemporary bike-sharing phenomenon. The two research questions considered by the study are: (1) In what ways are New York City’s Citi Bike bike-sharing program and China’s dockless bike-sharing boom (embodied by the move-fast-and-break-things ethos of Mobike and Ofo) similar and different? (2) How do their similarities and differences impact users’ experience and user perception? These questions are valuable to planners first and foremost because of their timeliness. As Post Editorial Board (2017) predicts, bike-sharing is generating tremendous momentum around the world and cities like New York City must prepare. Bike-sharing can serve the public (through health and convenience), the earth, and even the city quite well. Nonetheless, significant challenges must be considered. While bike-sharing, in its modern incarnation, first developed in the mid-1990s, it already reached critical mass by 2015 and, since then, it has been pushing forward with such pace that urban planners can fail to keep up (Goodyear, 2017). As per the regularly updated Bike Sharing Map (2017), there have been at least 2118 implementations of bike-sharing thus far, and nearly 2000 of them are still operational in some capacity. Additionally, these questions are important to look into because bike-sharing can shape cities in subtle or even conspicuous ways by influencing public behaviors and perceptions, forcing planners to watch and react as changes cascade out of their control. A greater proportion of urban traffic is by bike, thus necessitating more bike paths; property near such paths has started to increase in value; parts of cities have become more accessible (S. N., 2013). Furthermore, the egalitarian nature of bike-sharing represents a tide that can lift all boats. In Chinese cities, young professionals and old construction workers alike make great use of - 3 - Mobike’s services. The move-fast-and-break-things nature of Uber around the globe has strained regulators and city planners to the brink, but it has also changed cities. But cities are uniquely positioned to ensure greater oversight of the next wave of the sharing economy, bike-sharing. Whether public, like Citi Bike, or private, like Mobike,3 bike-sharing programs in cities utilize public resources and can therefore be held accountable by effective city planning and public policy. Lessons ascertained from Mobike’s breakneck pace of implementation and development in Shanghai should prove invaluable to American as well as foreign city planners in the immediate future. This research is both significant and timely. The large cities of the world are at a crossroads today, facing decisions on whether bike-sharing will figure prominently in their futures or whether traditional models of transportation will continue to take precedence. Chinese bike-sharing corporations have extended the grasp of their competition outside of the Chinese borders, waging their war in Singapore, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and even the United States among other places. As New York goes, so may many other of the world’s great cities. The timeliness of this study is underscored by the manner in which bikeshare, and especially dockless