Cycle sharing program in Mumbai

A couple of days ago, I tweeted the image of a guy cycling alongside the bus I was taking to work. On a festive day with limited office traffic, he comfortably beat the bus on a 5 kilometer stretch.

This cyclist was as fast (if not faster) as any powered vehicle between mahim-prabhadevi & he wasn’t putting effort. pic.twitter.com/8dyuR421sj

— Ravindra (@ravindra_r) August 25, 2016

Then, I saw an update for a cycle sharing program being started in Mumbai on Linkedin with a photo of the Melbourne Bike share. Unfortunately I couldn’t comment on Linkedin as it showed an error, multiple times! That I consider LinkedIn to be a site with bad UX is another matter. So am posting my comment here…

Before you read my comment, here’s the news article:
The Hindu – Mumbai gets its maiden public bike share programme. That article has an apt beginning – photo of a boy cycling in the rain. And an apt end – points out that the dedicated cycle lane in BKC remains largely unused :).

Here is my comment:
Having seen the Melbourne one, I really wish this one takes off in Mumbai…

But a number of things are stacked against it:

• Location: why Ghatkopar? where the traffic is the messiest,
• Weather: Mumbai is no Melbourne, just walking you sweat bucket loads here. Most of the year,
• Culture: Have you ever seen a person jogging from / to office here / how many people do you see cycling on the road,
• Infrastructure: The only cycle lane I have seen here, the one in BKC is dysfunctional and used for parking cars
• Payment mechanism: I think the one in Melbourne has an option to charge your credit card directly, no upfront investment like the one mentioned here,
• Safety: Someone already pointed out this issue in a comment and just yesterday I was reading about the death of a cyclist on New York roads,
• Use case: When and for what are people going to use this IN GHATKOPAR? And are there enough of them?

But, somewhere deep down I really wish there were more and better designed experiments helping people in cities in India adopt cycling.