Users simply insert their credit card and choose a bike, returning it to one of the 100 solar-powered stations dotted around the city, not paying another dollar above their membership fee if they return the bike within 30 minutes.However, unlike a similar scheme which launched last year in Washington DC, Miami's is heavily skewed towards residents - a monthly pass costs $15, but one-day access (presumably for tourists) costs $14 and three days will set visitors back a whopping $30.The Washington DC Capital Bikeshare system, by contrast, charges $5 for a 24-hour usage period or $15 for a 5-day subscription, while London's Cycle Hire scheme costs £1 ($1.60) per day or £5 ($8) for a seven-day subscription.
Here's DecoBikes' official pricing page. Here are the bullets for daily membership:
DAILY MEMBERSHIPS
- Best Value for VISITORS
- Provides same benefits as the resident's BEACHPASS
- UNLIMITED Trips/Uses per day
- First 30 minutes of every trip is always FREE!
- Purchase your Daily Membership at any station
- Then your credit card acts as your pass at all stations
So, $14 for a daily membership. Seems kinda high, right? (But they say it's the best value for visitors!) I'm not a math genius, but if you're in Miami for more than 3 days and want to bikeshare, you might want to buy a the monthly BEACHPASS (in caps for some reason) membership (though you have to buy a minimum of 3 months).Though maybe it's their plan to make you come back? "Honey, my DecoBike membership is still active. It seems wasteful not to use it. I'm gonna go back to Miami Beach!"
Is this gouging tourists? Is this a tax on the not-sexy-enough-because-they-don't-live-in-Miami visitors? Wouldn't you rather have tourists biking around than causing much worse externalities (traffic, parking, pollution, winning close games against the Heat) by driving? Anyway, here's more info from someone who actually knows about this kind of stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment