Bluebikes

I am a foreigner loving for some months in the Boston-Cambridge-Somerville area, and I am deeply impress by the quality of the app, the service in general is great.

I love the city and I also get around walking but this past Fourth of July I decided with a group of friends to take the blue bikes out for the day and go see the fireworks along the Charles river. I was the first one on my bike at the first station and I had clicked on the daily pass. We have all seen that there was a promotion of a daily pass for 10 bucks. That is what they are marketing on there signs and what not. We had gone to another station to get bikes for the rest of my friends and we were driving the bikes for five hours at the end of the night after all the fireworks were done and we got to our preferred dock station, we were all charged 50+ dollars. Apparently the day pass is only for two hours and then you get charged $.25 per minute after that some Bull like that. If we had known we would spend over $50 each we would’ve decided to take an Uber instead of the bikes I had two other friends that had gotten their bikes after I did and we charged 70+ dollars. After sharing my experience with other friends, this is actually a common thing where with blue bikes you never know what amount you will get charged. Another friend who has driven the blue bikes before said they were charged $200 not sure if the reason but that was the last time they got on those bikes. I wanted to delete my blue bike account unfortunately it is linked to my Lyft, and it will delete the Lyft account as well. I don’t think I will continue to use the bike services. If you are going short distance this will probably be beneficial for you but not for an all day excursion because you will more likely pay an extravagant amount. With that extravagant amount, I could’ve bought a new bike from Walmart for $80 or paid the Uber. Scam? It feels like it.

The bikes don’t scan and inputting the id number is super unintuitive, worst public transit app ever

I paid for a day pass - unlimited rides for 24 hours. Then I took a ride the same day and they charged me $21. Apparently e-bikes aren’t included on the day pass. Which is fine, if that were ever disclosed. But it wasn’t, or I would have ridden a regular bike. They withhold that information and then bill you astronomically for using an ebike. Again, just disclose the fees for that bike and that it’s not included rather than showing nothing and then charging me after the fact. The only way I even knew was because of the charge on my card!

Can we make some improvements on bike distribution algorithm instead of simply filling all open docks with bikes before morning rush hours? 18 docks with only 1 normal bike at my starting point and not a single open dock at the ending near a commuter rail station. I’m pretty sure this is because of distributing new bikes as it’s never happened before.

The app is fine, but whenever I buy a monthly subscription it automatically switches to yearly subscription and charges me for a full year.

Bike’s docking mechanism was broken. Called customer service and was told to leave the bike near a dock so it could be fixed. Was told that the ride was ended, but was charged for a >1hr ride.

Had to pay 11.10 dollars for 30 minutes. That’s crazy. I will never use this again

The map feature works really well to find places to rent bikes. Unfortunately, the ride type UX is not great and that you will not be given the option to choose duration before you buy. And if you buy the wrong pass type, customer service will not help you. What looks like a $1 credit card authorization charge is actually a purchase - be warned they’re looking to nickel and dime you.

The switch to QR scans seems like an improvement overall but definitely glad the keys are back too, no phone app can beat that convenience.