Along for the Ride #187
On layoffs and a little micromobility story time
Heya friends, happy Monday.
This past week was a hard one (hence no newsletter hitting your inbox last Friday). I don’t write much about my personal ~work~ in an attempt to maintain separation of church and state for myself, but this week I thought I might dive into it a little bit because I thought you might be interested. So this week the crux of the newsletter is a bit of a story time situation. Grab a cuppa tea, and get cozy.
However, before I dive into the story this week, three additional head’s up:
The rest of this newsletter is in bullet point form as I didn’t have it in me to wax lyrical with additional prose this week, but I promise you there’s some great reads tucked in there.
This Friday I’ll be in Utah (!), so there will be no newsletter until next, next Friday as I’m on vacation.
If you make it to the end, you’ll be treated to a recipe and a shout-out to my ex who just subscribed!!
OK, now to story time.
Micromobility Story Time
[Note!! This section—and the whole newsletter—is always my ~opinion~, so take ‘em with a grain of salt if you so choose!]
I imagine some of you (but likely not all!) know that I work for Lyft’s micromobility team out here in San Francisco. Most days we work to make sure people have 24/7 access to bikes and scooters when they need them, but last Thursday I spent the day with big, slow tears rolling down my cheeks as I learnt about colleagues (many of whom are friends that feel like family in the real way, not the cheesy capitalism way) who were let go. So this little story time I’m going to share why I do genuinely think micromobility can last the test of time, and our story starts in Vancouver.
In the summer of 2016 I was living in Vancouver and getting prepared to move to London for grad school. I’d sold my bike, Lassie, to my good friend Maima and felt an immense pang of jealousy when my coworkers and friends were signing up for annual memberships to Mobi, Vancouver’s hotly anticipated bikeshare system. After living in Vancouver for 5+ years, a city where I took to biking as an adult, I was so upset to be moving on the cusp of bikeshare! But I was also more excited than ever to move to London and start biking there (mostly because London is flat as a pancake and Vancouver is uhh…. really flipping hilly).
When I got to London I was convinced (!) I was going to get a road bike with drop handle bars and become a speedy city biker. I wasn’t about to start doing sports or anything crazy, but I want a bike that was more nimble than my Vancouver hybrid (pictured above). And so one Sunday when doing field work for grad school I bought my first ever road bike for 50 quid at a Car Boot sale in Thamesmead (South London). I was so excited that I took approximately no pictures, expect one.
On my maiden voyage from my flat in London to LSE (where I was doing my Masters at the time), I made it … 300m from my flat before being hit by a driver. The driver was behind me, and had just decided I too must have been making a left-hand turn despite the fact that I very much so desired to go straight ahead. Without going into the gory details of it all, I ended up under the car, with a big sense of “WTF just happened”. I (thankfully) was just *chilling* under the car, with more adrenaline in my system than I could ever compute. I went down with a fucking vengeance because I left the BMW-Uber driver with a big scrap down the side of his car. Not so thankfully, I was so disoriented I waved him off, said I was fine, and tried to continue biking my way to school. Within 30 seconds of him driving off I realized without a shadow of a doubt two things: (1) I couldn’t really walk, and (2) my bike was totaled. Another biker stopped me, assessed the situation, and walked me the 300m back to my flat where I called parents / friends / the NHS (god bless the NHS).
I walked away from that crash with a small chip in my right knee cap, and the feeling of never, ever, ever wanting to ride a bike again. I will also never, ever let a driver off the hook like that again.
Thankfully, I was in London. The land of double-decker buses that are *always* just around the corner, the tube, my beloved overground, and a city so mystical and beautiful that walking was a treat in and of itself. I spent the next nine months walking *everywhere*. I was essentially at the point where if it took longer than 45 minutes to walk somewhere, then I’d think about *maybe* taking the bus / tube. I walked to school everyday and it took me 35m each way. I loved it. Statistically, I was more likely to get hit by a car walking (and I knew it because well, grad school lol), but in my bones I just felt safer and that’s all that really matters sometimes.
But then I started to get an itch to bike again, as summer rolled around. A ton of my friends in London biked around town, and I was always seemed to be lagging behind. Then one day in late Spring, a friend said she’d practice biking around school with me if I grabbed one of the Santander Cycles. I gave her a *big* eye roll. The bikes were a clunky tourist trap, and even though they were *everywhere* in Central London, I had an ego about being ~too cool~ for them. However, I decided to take her up on the offer and swore that if I regained my confidence I’d get my own bike in no time. I started biking places with my friend, then slowly started to bike on my own on paths / routes that I knew really well and could predict the flow of traffic / signal changes.
Bikeshare in London was not only the cheapest way to get around, but it ended up being the fastest and most reliable way for me too. I learnt from personal experience that what keeps bikeshare riders committed to the system isn’t just the fun, easy nature of it all—it’s the convenience of always having a bike when you need one.
About that time I was researching AVs as a job, and in the nascent beginnings of starting this very newsletter (!). As I rolled out of AV research, I decided I wanted to dip my toes into micromobility and found myself working at Beryl, a company that had designed a laser bike light to keep bikers safer when cycling. I thought that when I started working there, I’d likely buy myself a bike in no short order, but months and then eventually even a year passed and I was still smitten using Santander Cycles to bop around town. I’d come to London committed to getting a road bike and was living in London using the clunkiest, heaviest bike on the road. I got a rush racing the other cyclists down the A501 from Angel to Shoreditch (and sometimes I even beat them).
While at Beryl, the company transitioned to offering their own bikeshare products and services and I saw from the ground up how much blood, sweat, and tears it takes to build a bikeshare business. When I started we had no active markets, were actively designing bikes alongside Ben Serotta (a literal dream!!) and were asking big, profound questions about our values as a business.
Working at Beryl gave me a taste of something the working world hadn’t offered up much of: purpose, community, and the belief that good people can and will build great things that cities really need.
Eventually I moved outside of the Santander Cycle station area and bought another bike, Mildred. Mildred (who I still have to this day and is my favourite thing I have ever owned) is a classic hybrid bike, much like my original Vancouver bike. Mildred is one of those bikes I hope I will always have in my life.
Eventually, my time came to leave London (be it the pandemic vibes, wage stagnation, or just the need for a different challenge), and I made my way to San Francisco to keep working in micromobility. In the almost three years since I’ve moved (!), the micromobility team has accomplished some pretty amazing things: in 2022 Citi Bike alone had over 30 million rides, we had thousands upon thousands of equity members who typically ride more than their annual member counterparts, and had millions of riders across North America take their first micromobility ride. My favourite project that I’ve worked on to date, launching the new Ecobici in Mexico City, is seeing record breaking ridership with pedal bikes. Truly unheard of!!
During weeks like the one that has just passed where everything feels fucking grim, I am reminded that I get to work on projects that I care deeply about. Bikeshare was there for me when biking seemed like a scary and treacherous feat. It went from being my mode of transportation, to my passion project, then to my 9-5.
When I travel with my number one travel companion (my mom!), she always humours me with a bikeshare trip (and is now looking into a bike for herself, a mode-shift dream come true). From Vancouver, to London, to San Francisco—and wherever’s next—I remain ever so optimistic that bikeshare is a powerful force and I feel grateful it’s my little corner of the world to work on day-by-day.
I believe that if bikeshare hadn’t been there for me in London I wouldn’t be the ‘lil biker chick I am today. I wouldn’t be working in bikeshare, and likely could have phased out of the community side of biking altogether. I wouldn’t sit on the board of a non-profit dedicated to bikes, and I doubt if this newsletter would even exist. I got lucky that the infrastructure had been invested in long before I even knew I needed it.
I cried this week—the big, slow lumpy tears—slacking friends with the frightening question of “are you ok?” because I knew that I wouldn’t like the answer on the other end most of the time. Some of the people I’ve met along the way I lived with (hi Louis!), slept in their parent’s home (hi Paddy!), have consumed countless croissants with (hi Michael!), and have sent numerous voice memos of frustration (hi buns!). Because no matter what it’s the people who make a business. And no matter what happens, I know—in my bones—that each and every person I’ve met along this journey will continue to care so deeply about this work, about the potential bikeshare has to change our cities, bit by bit, bike by bike.
This newsletter is still dedicated to me mostly talking shit about cars (sorry not sorry), but I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into why I think bikeshare matters, and why against all odds (read: capitalism) micromobility isn’t going anywhere fast. I am now the biggest, geekiest bikeshare evangelist and I am happy to report I have stopped caring if I look ~cool~ altogether in every aspect of my life. Long live the clunky bikes.
Government and Policy
America’s racial gap in road deaths is harrowing (NYTimes)
The State of California is lettingg Tesla get away with Autopilot crashes (CleanTechnica)
Industry
Cruise expands their service area to cover all of San Francisco (SF Examiner)
Pony.ai is allowed to operate in China without safety drivers (Electrek)
Elon Musk continues to bet Tesla’s future on AVs (Bloomberg)
Autonomous tanks are the future of AVs (The Telegraph)
May Mobility launches an autonomous transit system in a retirement community in Arizona (Forbes)
Research and Academia
Digitial inequality in public transport (Cities Journal)
The impact of Covid-19 on cycling (Transport Reviews)
Health effects of transport noise (Transport Reviews)
Guide for life cycle assessments of micromobility emissions (NUMO)
Opinion
Will AVs become roving sex pods (Motor Trend)*** More commentary coming next week because obviously
Six tips for sharing public roads with AVs (WashPo)
Extra Bits + Bobs
OK, first things first, is this scallop and corn recipe. Chorizo is very optional to add, but something about it being *almost* corn season is bringing me a new zest on life.
This week (of all weeks!), an ex from London not only subscribed to this newsletter but also *drumroll please* tweeted to his 465 twitter followers to also follow suit. I texted my best friend and she summed it up nicely with the word “shooketh”. So JB, if you’re reading this, thank you for giving me a much needed moment of levity. And to all readers, just know that sometimes that that person you used to date ages ago is indeed still thinking about how funny / witty / charming you are, and it’s OK to relish in that feeling for just a lil bit.
That’s all from me. Have a beautiful weekend friends.
Sarah
You're a great storyteller. I'm right there with you on the love for aand belief that micromobility is a gamechanger for cities, and we're still figuring out how to do it best. Thanks for sharing this story Sarah!