The Dallas Bike Force

In the summer of 2018, the City of Dallas had something new flooding its streets – over 20,000 dockless bikes. Dockless bikes are pay-per-use bikes that can be unlocked with an app and left anywhere when the ride is done, and they have proved to be controversial in Dallas: many love the resource they provide, but others loathe the mess and disorganization that a dockless system can cause.

Ultimately, more biking means a more sustainable and mobile future for Dallas. This was the marketing claim that the five bike companies who’d set up shop in the city were making, but it’s also a fact: bikes can cut automobile emissions and provide transportation. The problem is, for dockless bikes (sometimes called bikeshare) to bring this benefit, they have to be a system that users can rely on. We learned early on that reliability was a huge issue with the bikes, and that this reliability was often tied into beliefs about place: where the bikes should and shouldn’t go. We set out to learn how to make a place for a “placeless system,” but what we learned was that the real need was for a human presence in this system. Our prototype of this, The Dallas Bike Force, became a model we proposed that the city use as a real resource.

METHODOLOGY

This project lended itself well to immersive research, so our first research episode involved us attempting to attend a movie using bikeshare. Unfortunately, after being unable to locate a bike after five tries, we were tipped off to how unreliable the system could be.

We also conducted 88 interviews over three weeks. Two of these interviews were immersive experiences where we shadowed two Dallas residents on their commutes using bikeshare. We then created six prototypes of different ways to create reliability within bikeshare.

OUTCOME

The Dallas Bike Force started as a prototype where our team wore uniforms and pretended to patrol bike stations, but it became a persona that we adopted throughout all of our subsequent prototypes. While masquerading as the Dallas Bike Force, we were asked for help by LimeBike staff, served as a listening ear for bike users with feedback, fielded complaints from nonusers, and listened to the requests of small business owners. The Bike Force became a prototype that allowed us to identify the need for a human presence in the bikeshare sphere, but especially for a human presence with authority. The “faceless” bikeshare system needed people to both protect it and protect citizens from it, and we were able to fill this need in the flesh. 

On our last day in the field, we were approached by the city bike manager while we were “patrolling” and checking on duct-tape bikestations and signage that we had created. The city official told us his staff had photographed us, and we feared the end of the Bike Force. But then, he smiled and said, “I like your signs. Maybe there’s a way for us to collaborate.”