Politics, open government, and safe streets. And the constant incursion of cycling.

WTF is Wrong With SmartBike DC?

From an email I just received:

Dear SmartBike User:

Due to the presidential inaugural events on January 20, SmartBike service at some stations will not be available for the period of January 16 through January 22. The following stations will be closed:

Foggy Bottom

Farragut Square

McPherson Square

Metro Center

Gallery Place

Judiciary Square

Please visit www.smartbikedc.com for further updates.

We thank you for your understanding and appreciate your cooperation.

Your SmartBike DC Team

No, you really don’t have my understanding.  What in the world requires you to shut down operations for an entire week?  Inauguration Day would be lame enough, but the whole week?  I’d have called and/or emailed to ask Smartbike about this before I posted, but given that they’ve ignored my previous calls and emails, I thought I’d just not waste the time.   It’s a shame that such a valuable operation is so poorly run.

Update: As usual, Washcycle has some useful information.  Looks like WABA is working to secure permission to run a bike valet service come inauguration day.

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4 Comments

  1. I understand
    Inauguration is going to be chaos
    a massive sea of people

    now… selling customer’s emails?
    that is just bad business

  2. MB

    Crowds that bad for the whole week? I think not.

    (Oh, and the emails weren’t sold. They were all in the To: line in an email to all DC customers a few weeks ago. I wrote back about that, and they ignored me. It’s that Clear Channel sense of appreciation for the community, loud and clear.)

  3. I’m not sure what to make of this. Do they think the bikes will be vandalized?

  4. MB

    I have no idea. I mean, I understand shutting down the racks inside the security perimeter the day of the Inauguration, but as to the rest of it . . .

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