Forum Discussion

Wim's avatar
Wim
Casual Commenter
2 months ago

Please remove public racks from the City Explorer

In the City Explorer view for Chicago, about half of the "Divvy stations" are not actually stations at all. They're just public bike racks. You can lock an ebike here without a fee, but you can't get or leave a classic bike. They shouldn't show up in the City Explorer.

In the Lyft last mile API json (https://s3.amazonaws.com/lyft-lastmile-production-iad/lbs/chi/station_information.json) these are indicated with:

    "rack_model": "CITY_PUBLIC_RACK"

And in the GBFS station information feed (https://gbfs.divvybikes.com/gbfs/en/station_information.json) they are indicated by:

    "station_type": "lightweight",
    "has_kiosk": false

In the Graph QL API (https://account.divvybikes.com/bikesharefe-gql) they're also indicated as "lightweight", but so are e-bike only stations. Fortunately the station name always seems to start with "Public Rack", so they can still be distinguished by the name prefix e.g.:

{
  "stationId": "motivate_CHI_1806749740082741752",
  "stationName": "Public Rack - Milwaukee Ave & Lawrence Ave",
  "location": {
    "lat": 41.967385,
    "lng": -87.760169,
    "__typename": "Location"
  },
  "bikesAvailable": 0,
  "bikeDocksAvailable": 2,
  "ebikesAvailable": 0,
  "totalBikesAvailable": 0,
  "isValet": false,
  "isOffline": false,
  "isLightweight": true,
  "siteId": "",
  "ebikes": [],
  "lastUpdatedMs": 1682970704000,
  "__typename": "Station"
}

Here is a google maps example of what one of these "stations" looks like, i.e. it's just a city rack:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/jmnHeaqnbtQ32QDM9 

Please remove these from the map in the bike share mobile app. They're too many, too visually noisy, and not useful.

Those city racks are almost always empty, so all they do is put a whole bunch of "Zero" pins on the map and obscure the real stations, like you can see in the screenshot below - the pin near the CTA station is a "real" bike share station, but all the zero pins on S Pulaski Rd are just public racks.

 

  • Lyft_Omar's avatar
    Lyft_Omar
    Bike Angels Team

    Hey Wim!

    Thanks for the breakdown and feedback about how public bike racks are counted as Divvy Stations. I am flagging this feedback internally and will get back to you if this does change as for an app experience I can definitely see how this may be confusing for new riders plus, as you stated, adds visual clutter.