Putting the "oh no" into obikes

1Rowdy1
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby 1Rowdy1 » Wed Jun 13, 2018 10:31 am

BJL wrote:I'm going to add my 2 cents here and say that there are a couple of issues here.

Well let's try an experiment. Close 95% of ALL parking in all of Melbourne currently available for motor vehicles for a week and we'll see where motorists dump their vehicles?
I wish they would, if you got rid of all curb side parking our cities would be so much better.

fat and old
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby fat and old » Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:12 am

human909 wrote:
fat and old wrote:Maybe I was too subtle. My POV is that the various authorities got a hard on about someone being able to make money without said authorities getting a cut, the RACV got a hard on about having legit competition for their blue bikes and the media/public outcry played right into their hands. In fact, I’d believe that the media coverage which was pretty negative from day one was deliberate and directed.
:D I missed that subtly too!
Yeah, maybe a bit unusual for me :lol:
On that matter I don't see an issue with councils getting a cut of the business. Pass the relevant state or council laws and find some suitable model that works.

Obikes obviously did a terrible job of playing the Game of Thrones Councillors. :wink:
There doesn't have to be any new laws, regs or otherwise. There are established guidelines for the appropriation of public car parking spaces for instance

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/parking ... aring.aspx

That's 350 spaces. You could put what? 15 bikes in a dock in each space. I'll assume that COM charges a rate based on lost revenue here.

Or on the footpath. Again established guidelines and rates...

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/busines ... rmits.aspx

On Swanston St for instance the going rate is $69.18 per sq. meter, per annum. It reduces as you move further out until it gets to $15.64 per meter per annum.

I don't see why the bikes should be worse off than an outdoor dining area on the footpath. There are further rates for short and long term street trading, food truck exclusive places, fruit and flower kiosks etc.

I honestly don't see why they should get the use of public land for free either. The costs however should be in line with the footprint used. Every council has this calculated.
Close 95% of ALL parking in all of Melbourne currently available for motor vehicles for a week and we'll see where motorists dump their vehicles?
Are you talking inner CBD? Outer? Docklands? The COM has made sure there's very little free parking left, as have most inner city councils. If you pay, then fare enough. IMO anyway.

Edit....missed this
The bikeshares comply with all law, there is no such thing as ....................................... formal bike parking spaces.
That's not quite true. The RACV blue bikes have a formal parking place. The COM has this page on locations of the ubiquitous cycle hoops

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/parking ... -bike.aspx

These can be seen as either a convenience supplied by COM out of the goodness of their hearts or a mandated location. I don't know nor care which.

fat and old
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby fat and old » Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:28 am

Interestingly, on the COM "obike" page

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/parking ... bikes.aspx

I find this
We are requesting the State Government to establish more fit-for- purpose overall regulatory arrangements as a matter of priority.
They didn't need this for their own RACV bikes, so why now?

BJL
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby BJL » Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:47 am

fat and old wrote:
Close 95% of ALL parking in all of Melbourne currently available for motor vehicles for a week and we'll see where motorists dump their vehicles?
Are you talking inner CBD? Outer? Docklands? The COM has made sure there's very little free parking left, as have most inner city councils. If you pay, then fare enough. IMO anyway.
ALL of Melbourne.The entire metropolitan area at least. Railway Stations, shopping centres, on street parking, all of it.

To demonstrate to the ignorant that many O-bikes were left lying around because there are very few bicycle parking facilities. I'm not distinguishing between paid parking and free parking. ALL parking. To put motorists in the same position as cyclists. Where parking is very rare or simply not available, free or otherwise.

It'll be just for a week. :P

Jmuzz
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Jmuzz » Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:52 am

1Rowdy1 wrote:
human909 wrote:
1Rowdy1 wrote:
But then again I could follow obikes lead and start my own business by placing 1000 odd pool tables on the footpaths around Melbourne design an app so people can get the balls out, wont be an inconvenience to anyone.
A pool table is not a legal vehicle and you won't find a single publication saying you can "park your pool table as long as it is safe and out of the way".

This is especially relevant in VIC where Motor Bikes are explicitly given rights to park on footpaths. The only reason Bicycles aren't mentioned in that point of the vic road rules is that they are allowed under other laws.

Basically you are saying that bicycles are not allowed to park on footpaths and if they do it's ok to damage them?

EPA have certain powers for pollution.
But they have been used as a hammer to bash the sharebike concept rather than debate bicycle parking laws in parliament.

Lots of silence from the State politicians on the sharebike matter for the last two years.
Some councils complain, but they aren't the ones with legislation power.

Rather than debate bike parking, which leads to creating more dedicated bike parking spaces, they have assassinated the concept out of parliament.

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby madmacca » Wed Jun 13, 2018 12:31 pm

1Rowdy1 wrote:No other business has the right to dump there product on the foot path when ever and where ever it likes.Even poor old mum and dad run coffee shops need a permit and pay a fee to be able to put a single seat on the footpath, so why should a multi national hire bike company be exempt and get special treatment?
Except that it is not the company dumping the bikes, it is users or random passers-by.

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby fat and old » Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:27 pm

BJL wrote:
fat and old wrote:
Close 95% of ALL parking in all of Melbourne currently available for motor vehicles for a week and we'll see where motorists dump their vehicles?
Are you talking inner CBD? Outer? Docklands? The COM has made sure there's very little free parking left, as have most inner city councils. If you pay, then fare enough. IMO anyway.
ALL of Melbourne.The entire metropolitan area at least. Railway Stations, shopping centres, on street parking, all of it.

To demonstrate to the ignorant that many O-bikes were left lying around because there are very few bicycle parking facilities. I'm not distinguishing between paid parking and free parking. ALL parking. To put motorists in the same position as cyclists. Where parking is very rare or simply not available, free or otherwise.

It'll be just for a week. :P
Yeah, I can dig on that :lol:

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby fat and old » Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:30 pm

Jmuzz wrote:This is especially relevant in VIC where Motor Bikes are explicitly given rights to park on footpaths. The only reason Bicycles aren't mentioned in that point of the vic road rules is that they are allowed under other laws.
You know that the correct analogy for the motorcycles is the Elizabeth St traders who have long parked their M/C's on the footpath as a second display? They pay for that privelege.

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Jmuzz » Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:47 pm

No it isn't the same because they aren't available for member use, there are existing rules about vehicles for sale, they probably aren't all registered (which MC must be, but not bicycle).

But go push one over, even by accident because it was in the way. I bet the police will be interested in that.
Run one down into the river, probably make national news.

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby human909 » Wed Jun 13, 2018 2:24 pm

https://www.theage.com.au/melbourne-new ... 4zl28.html

So it would seem that the Lord Mayor was against Obikes before they even hit the streets.

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby fat and old » Wed Jun 13, 2018 3:18 pm

Jmuzz wrote:No it isn't the same because they aren't available for member use, there are existing rules about vehicles for sale, they probably aren't all registered (which MC must be, but not bicycle).
Maybe not, but the owner is making money. That is the difference here. Not whether they are entitled as bicycles to park on the path. Money. Money makes the world go round. I can't think of any business that can operate on council owned high profile land without having to pay. Doing so upsets the people who would have collected that money. It upsets others who do similar yet pay. Nothing worse than an opposition that has less overheads through shiftyness (as they see it).

Down in Rye a few seasons back a fella who owned a large block of land opp. the beach, right in the main drag turned it into a food truck place. The local traders went nuts, had council sick 'em until he gave up.

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Tequestra
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Tequestra » Wed Jun 13, 2018 3:37 pm

Here is a tangent to the visual littering problem that seems to be a major stress-point against this commerical endeavour. Hookworm. Necator Americanus, which I have mentioned before here a while back.

Necator Americanus is not native to Australia, but SBS have reported on hookworm in the past, in Australia, brought back by international tourists who holidayed in South-East Asia.

Hookworm is highly contagious by contact. That is how they survive the generations. Word has it that there are Australians who have never held a passport contracting hookworm, and how could that possibly be? It is apparently most predominant amongst male manual labourers who may have never been overseas before, but they shared a forklift with someone who had.

My concern is thus with handlebar hygiene. If someone has used that obike before you, and that someone has walked barefoot on Phuket, contracting hookworm sometime in the past few months, and they sweated on those handgrips, and then you ride that same bike, then guess what? Your lungs are going to get mildly clogged up with hookworm larvae, then your intestines will feel just a little different in the mornings, without any noticable pain, and then eventually your legs will start to itch and you will be inclined to scratch those itches, drawing blood eventually, and spreading those pesky little hookworms around your legs and onto things that you touch, including the handlebars of hired obikes.

Just a tangental consideration that points to the fact that sharing the same pair of handlebars with international-travelling strangers is not necessarily a healthy idea.
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1Rowdy1
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby 1Rowdy1 » Wed Jun 13, 2018 3:41 pm

Jmuzz wrote:
1Rowdy1 wrote:
human909 wrote:
A pool table is not a legal vehicle and you won't find a single publication saying you can "park your pool table as long as it is safe and out of the way".

This is especially relevant in VIC where Motor Bikes are explicitly given rights to park on footpaths. The only reason Bicycles aren't mentioned in that point of the vic road rules is that they are allowed under other laws.

Basically you are saying that bicycles are not allowed to park on footpaths and if they do it's ok to damage them?

EPA have certain powers for pollution.
But they have been used as a hammer to bash the sharebike concept rather than debate bicycle parking laws in parliament.

Lots of silence from the State politicians on the sharebike matter for the last two years.
Some councils complain, but they aren't the ones with legislation power.

Rather than debate bike parking, which leads to creating more dedicated bike parking spaces, they have assassinated the concept out of parliament.

No, I am saying you can not take over the footpath to run your business without getting permits for the use of the footpath, as far as obike goes the problems have been put to them time and time again, they chose to do nothing so they got hit with a sledge hammer, I say good and hope the next business that wants to abuse ratepayers facilities faces a sledge hammer too.

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby mikesbytes » Wed Jun 13, 2018 3:43 pm

BJL wrote:Three, the $3000 fee to remove abandoned O-bikes. Since bikes weigh about 1% (or less) of the average motor vehicle and motor vehicles being full of dangerous chemicals, fuel, oil, battery acids, etc, then surely the fine to remove an illegally parked motor car should be around $300k, payable by the owner. Some might say that's utterly ridiculous but by mass, that's what the owner of the O-bikes is expected to pay
That's equivalence, totally correct
fat and old wrote:That's 350 spaces. You could put what? 15 bikes in a dock in each space. I'll assume that COM charges a rate based on lost revenue here
News Flash: Melbourne adds 4,900 parking spots in the CBD
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Jmuzz » Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:13 pm

Tequestra wrote: My concern is thus with handlebar hygiene. If someone has used that obike before you, and that someone has walked barefoot on Phuket, contracting hookworm sometime in the past few months, and they sweated on those handgrips, and then you ride that same bike, then guess what?
Seems a bit over the top.
Tests show that every handrail and button in Sydney has faeces on it anyway.

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Tequestra
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Tequestra » Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:28 pm

Jmuzz wrote: Seems a bit over the top.
Tests show that every handrail and button in Sydney has faeces on it anyway.
Good afternoon Jmuzz. True, but those handrails and buttons are 'toucher-beware'. Just like you can't drive a forklift without touching the steering wheel, you can't ride an obike without touching the handlebars, practically anyway.

Take for instance, hired cars. They are supposed to be cleaned after every customer has returned them to the yard, so that remnants from the last user are expunged. One expects a hire car to be clean. I am no expert on these hire bikes, but from what I gather, there is no one to wash the bikes if the hirer choses not to leave them up a tree or somewhere. This is big disease business, James. Hookworm is just one of the annoying ones that I know from personal experience, but I can fairly much guarantee that if I'd hired one of those obikes a few years ago before I knew what was making my legs itch and bleed, then I would not want to wish that you'd hired that same bike after me. Your doctor would not have a clue what to do because they are not trained in hookworm. You would be an enigma to them and to yourself.

It is not quite as harmless as hiring a video from the store used to be, because of the sweat. If hookworm can travel across forklift steering wheels, then hookworm can travel across handlebars too. It is a good thing that this kind of silly business is gone, IMHO, because it is more of a health hazard than whatever health benefits it might offer.

Thanks for your reply, mate. These close encounters of the third kind are most welcome on a Wednesday like this one.
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Jmuzz » Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:29 pm

fat and old wrote:I can't think of any business that can operate on council owned high profile land without having to pay.
I can. Bikeshare, completely legal.
Bikes don't compare to other objects because they are legally defined as vehicles and do not require any form of registration/licensing.

It is not for council and abuse of the EPA to force things to their liking, that is for State Parliament to set new laws about bicycle registration and/or parking rules if that is the intention.

Where is the bikeshare debate in Parliament?
They seem to be afraid to go there.

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Tequestra » Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:37 pm

Jmuzz wrote:State Parliament to set new laws about bicycle registration
...
They seem to be afraid to go there.
Yesterday I read an ABC article about some politician in Brisbane whose daughter was, (if I rememebr rightly) hit by a senior citizen in an electric scooter thingy, and now wants those seniors' electric buggies to be registered.

I can see it coming. The way things are panning out in our cowardly new world, time will come when we will all need a registration number to walk out our own front doors in the mornings. Technology is not a friend of mankind. Technology is a tool for authority. I guess that if we are happy to put council registration tags on our dogs and cats, then we should be comfortable with putting electrtonic dog tags around our own necks, and who cares about human freedom? Who cares about registration with the authorities for the privilege of living?

Welcome to the future.
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby fat and old » Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:46 pm

Jmuzz wrote:
fat and old wrote:I can't think of any business that can operate on council owned high profile land without having to pay.
I can. Bikeshare, completely legal.
The Blue bikes?
It is not for council and abuse of the EPA to force things to their liking, that is for State Parliament to set new laws about bicycle registration and/or parking rules if that is the intention.

Where is the bikeshare debate in Parliament?
They seem to be afraid to go there
I agree that using the EPA was a dirty move. I cannot see why the State gov need be involved. As I said earlier, plenty of precedant for council to assume reg. authority.....unless dockless is the only way these blokes want to work. Then yeah, I guess State control.
Yesterday I read an ABC article about some politician in Brisbane whose daughter was, (if I rememebr rightly) hit by a senior citizen in an electric scooter thingy, and now wants those seniors' electric buggies to be registered.
Good. Those people are entitled terrorists

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Tequestra
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Tequestra » Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:52 pm

fat and old wrote:Good. Those people are entitled terrorists
Terrorists? Without bombs? Isn't that a bit harsh? At least the car brigade only call cyclists 'thugs' which is quite a kind label by comparison. Well, have it your way, Lucky. We are all terrorists without bombs so lets bomb each other until the roads are as safe and empty as the freeways of Pyongyang. Then there will be peace in this world.
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Jmuzz » Wed Jun 13, 2018 5:07 pm

fat and old wrote: The Blue bikes?
The OBike model, still is legal.

They only bailed out because of impossible 48hr to get bikes out of restricted access locations or $3000 fine.
Try and get a permit to access restricted floodway etc, it will take a week just to get a response to email then have to wait for an induction course, meanwhile 48hrs is supposed to be enough to get workers with climbing gear, boats, divers out to collect a bike. Flash flooding risk? Weekend? Permits required? Restricted access hours? Road lane or railway closure/control? Tough do it in 48hrs or pay $3000. Lovely.

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby wicksey » Wed Jun 13, 2018 5:24 pm

I heard this morning that there is a large amount of O or similar on-demand bikes sitting somewhere in a warehouse in Perth, ready to go.

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Tequestra » Wed Jun 13, 2018 5:31 pm

wicksey wrote:I heard this morning that there is a large amount of O or similar on-demand bikes sitting somewhere in a warehouse in Perth, ready to go.
Let TwoWheels know. There are a lot of citizens who would be wise to spend their cash on food and rent and borrow a bike for the commuting. I won't elaborate too much but there is always a good porpoise for mankind's unwanted engineering. Just as man invented the wheel after she worked out how to build those triangle things in Egypt all those years ago, everyone could use a bike that he can't afford. No worries. They can find good homes if they advertise in the right places.

PS: Put motors on them, and batteries. I can source the controllers from China cheap. They'll get some takers then.
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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby mikesbytes » Wed Jun 13, 2018 6:01 pm

what about seatbelts in Taxi's, most likely touching the skin of a lady dressed to impress on her way to clubbling
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Putting the "oh no" into obikes

Postby Jmuzz » Wed Jun 13, 2018 6:19 pm

mikesbytes wrote:what about seatbelts in Taxi's, most likely touching the skin of a lady dressed to impress on her way to clubbling
It's like the old Seinfeld episode.
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