JUMP Bike's dockless pilot program in Staten Island is buggier than a muggy summer night in Snug Harbor.
The company says it has dozens of pedal-assist electric bikes in its program, but at various times this week, the app showed zero bikes available for rent on the North Shore. Sometimes there was one. Other times three (see pictures).
Yet people on Staten Island say that JUMP bikes are certainly available to be taken out.
'I see them everywhere," said Rose Uscianowski, a TransAlt organizer.
Uscianowski has one advantage over JUMP app users: She has eyes. The main challenge of a dockless bike system, of course, is that bikes are not tethered to stations, as with Citi Bike — so the app is the only way to know the location of an available bike. If no bikes show as "available" on the app, a would-be JUMP user has to bounce to the competitor, Lime Bike, whose app has consistently shown scores of bikes available all day and night since the Staten Island portion of the city's dockless test program began last week. (JUMP's app is also periodically buggy in the Bronx, another area where JUMP is experimenting with dockless bike share. At press time, the app showed only four bikes available.)
So what's going on? A JUMP spokeswoman declined to answer basic questions, saying only that "the app is working in Staten Island and we encourage residents and visitors to download (it) and give it a try." But a source inside the company, which is owned by Uber, admitted on background that the app has been a bit buggy.
Yes, you just read that JUMP is owned by Uber — the company that basically invented an app to let users know exactly the location of every cab in the area. That's the company that's having trouble with dockless bike share?
We asked NYC DOT to assess JUMP's program, but the agency has not gotten back to us yet. When it does, Streetsblog will update.
