Transit rebounds, ebike rebates improve, lockers launch
Transit rebounds, ebike rebates improve, lockers launch
Explore Curbivore's 2024 highlight reel
Wow, can you believe Curbivore 2024 was almost two weeks ago? Relive the magic of our most innovative gathering yet in our brand new sizzle reel.
We always strive to make each event better than the last! If you attended Curbivore ‘24, please help us out by answering this quick survey. It takes only 60 seconds and will help us make future events even more unique and impactful.
P.S. Because so many of you have asked for it, here’s the Curbivore 2024 Playlist.
HOT INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
A recap of Curbivore product launches: As usual, Curbivore proved to be fertile grounds for exciting new launches in the worlds of mobility and delivery. We saw Uber Eats and DeliverZero launch their West Coast partnership. PDD leader Starship Technologies teamed up with Nickelytics to bring on-bot advertising to new campuses, starting with a “Love, Your Mind” ad campaign. And CryoX turned to BIB Technologies to premiere its new CryoSkin, a radiative cooling material that improves energy efficiency.
Transit on the rebound: The APTA has crunched the numbers, and it looks like American public transit ridership rebounded a healthy 16% in 2023. While that’s still only 79% of pre-pandemic levels, it’s worth breaking down the recovery by transit type: bus is at 81% of pre-pandemic levels, light rail at 73%, heavy rail at 70% and commuter rail at just 65%. As those latter categories are the most downtown office worker serving, it’s clear some riders just won’t be coming back as long as they don’t need to be in the CBD.
Ebike rebate improvements: Colorado isn’t resting on its laurels, it’s just updated its ebike rebate system to be a point-of-sale instant credit, as opposed to making people file a complicated form and wait until tax season to get some money back. This is a great way to get electric bikes into the hands of folks that need them the most!
Light ‘em up! Voltpost has commercially released its new curbside charging hardware, meant to tap into existing streetlights to offer on-street L2 charging. While other players like Flo and EVSE also offer streetlight-adapted charging, Voltpost’s hardware is certainly more visually appealing. But will it stand up to the abuse that street furniture often receives?
Speaking of streetlights… A new book — Electric Moons — traces the story of LA’s iconic streetlights, and how they relate to the growth of the city. Admittedly, Los Angeles doesn’t always have the prettiest streets, but nowhere else has such a diverse array of public lighting installations. Can any other city claim not just one, but two, famous immersive art installations about street lights? (That’s Chris Burden’s Urban Light and Sheila Klein’s Vermonica, for you fellow art heads…)
Insert reference to Nelly and the St. Lunatics: For all the conservative bellyaching about the demise of coastal CBDs, the downtown that’s actually hurting the most is St. Louis, Missouri. With its office occupancy recovery sitting lower than all other major American cities’, parts of Downtown lay half abandoned, with major office buildings trading hands for less than the price of SF condos. Paradoxically, the regional economy is doing rather well: the WSJ deems it one of the top 20 job markets in the country. We’re seeing the pernicious effects of job sprawl combined with decades of racial inequity. While a planned expansion of the area’s MetroLink light rail network will help make urban commuting more appealing, the chosen route’s compromised location is just as likely to push more people towards Clayton, a secondary CBD with much less diversity.
Still the oil capital of the world… Houston’s new mayor John Whitmire is doubling down on cars, undoing the hard work of his more multi-modal predecessor. Not only has his administration cut funding for bike and ped projects, he’s removed pedestrian islands and thinks of safe street advocates as “anti-car activists.” That’s Texas, baby…
A fitting news item for the day O.J. died? After making a big and splashy bet on a Tesla-fied fleet, Hertz is seriously retrenching its EV efforts. What went wrong? Undertrained staffers weren’t able to educate renters about how to use the newfangled cars (remember, they don’t even have normal door handles,) and sometimes couldn’t even charge them up over night. Meanwhile repair costs mounted due to inexperienced drivers compounded by a limited service network; all the while resale value dropped thanks to Elon cutting prices to keep up with the competition.
Big launches for cool partners: Waymo’s expanding its partnership with Uber to include Eats food delivery services, starting with Phoenix. Automotus is bringing its curb management and automated parking enforcement to Pikeville, in the heart of eastern Kentucky. (For those of you not keeping track, parking enforcement in parts of the Midwest have been a mess since 2019, when the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals made the insane ruling that chalking a tire is a violation of 4A.)
Lockered and loaded: Da Big Apple officially launched LockerNYC, its publicly accessible package locker program. Placed on curbs and other publicly accessible areas, the boxes look like Amazon or UPS lockers, but will allow open access by just about any delivery service.
A few good links: DC tosses plans for important new bike lanes in the swamp. Vancouver kicks off its Summer Patio Program, with 200 streateries + parklets to pop up citywide. Congrats to Maniv Mobility on its $140M new fund. AB 2503 — which would exempt electric rail projects from CEQA — makes progress in the CA Assembly. SB 1271 — which would add quality standards for ebikes / batteries — moves ahead as well. A deep dive on how upmarket ebike brand Cake went splat. LA Metro’s One Car Challenge shows that paying families just $120/week makes them 4.5X more likely to stick to one car. Caltrain energizes its rail corridor. Singaporean TNC Ryde raises chump change on the NYSE. Moove scores $100M to finance rideshare vehicles in developing countries.
Until next week!
- Jonah Bliss & The Curbivore Crew