Orange Line rider punched in the mouth when he asks some teens to stop aggro-blocking the doors with their Bluebikes

Like yourself, a lot of times when I see a Bluebike near someone lounging, or heaven forbid on the T, I just assume it's been stolen.

I've got to get into the habit of returning wayward Bluebikes to docking stations. I'm not brave enough to do it when people are around, but I'll see them randomly around.

At least once I've seen a Bluebike chained to posts. Mind you, this is within a block of a docking station.

There is probably a surge of use on mondays.

As a frequent points-getter (it's moderately fun!) there is no sense in bringing a bike on the T for points. The points are not distance-based; the most points come from finding bikes which are near each other and moving them and walking or running back. The most points you can get from a single move is 8, and the points are worth 10 cents each (after the first 80, which extend your membership). Even if you have a monthly pass and your marginal trip cost is 0, given the state of the T these days, it's almost never going to be worth hauling one of those bikes on and off of the train rather than just, you know, riding it.

There do seem to be some more abandoned/stolen BlueBikes. I reported one to a rebalancing driver and he said "we don't touch ones we find, since there are often people who have stolen then nearby and they are usually not very nice." I think that's company policy. When I find one I have taken to returning it (you can report it, but BlueBikes doesn't seem to respond quickly). But I look around first and am ready to make a quick getaway. I think people have found that with enough force they can wrestle some bikes out of the docks if they have some sort of defect and try that.

All of this said, it's a great system, and one of the most successful. Minneapolis-St Paul's system went belly-up (they now have more expensive/dangerous dockless scooters). Systems with E-bikes get expensive, complicated and inequitable quickly. (Chicago, for instance, costs 17 to 42 cents per minute for e-bikes and scooters, quickly surpassing transit costs for many trips and even cab fare for others.) BlueBikes average about 15,000 rides per day, meaning that each bike gets used nearly 10 times per day (more, on the busiest days), a per-bike use rate on par with New York. (Lots of stats here)

I do see complaints that it can be hard to find a bike/dock in certain places at certain times of day, and so I do wish they would raise the points available for moving bikes (they raised the maximum from 3 to 4, so the per trip maximum from 6 to 8, a few years ago). In the fall of 2021, they had a double-point couple of weeks, which meant that it was almost possible to earn minimum wage moving bikes and running around. Gets you outside in fresh air, at least.

Sometimes people don't dock them properly - make sure that the bike is secured because then it is "checked in" or find another dock.

Sometimes the thieves just shake bikes until they find one that has a wonky docking lock.

If you don't make enough paper for whip, you are not part of anything. But if fanboys & fangirls buy the merch, gangs will take advantage of the advertising to intimidate the public.

It’s cute that you pretend like you aren’t sure what my screename is ;)
For someone who’s “most despised” my comments sure do get a lot of clicks on the ol’ thumbs up button!

It usually works for me. Not dead yet.