Whee more bikes

Dallas racks up more bicycles with new bike-sharing outfit from China

Hop on your Ofo and ride, baby ride.

Photo courtesy of Ofo

Yet a fifth bicycle-sharing company has launched in Dallas, dropping more than 1,000 yellow bikes into inner-city areas such as downtown and Uptown Dallas. Called Ofo, it's based in Beijing, China, and has a fleet of more than 10 million bicycles in 180 cities and 13 countries.

With 1,000-plus bikes, Ofo jumps ahead to become the biggest bike sharing provider in Dallas. It represents the company's biggest expansion in the United States so far. Go Dallas.

Like other bike-sharing companies, Ofo uses an app-based program that helps you find bikes nearby. The bikes have a QR code that you scan to unlock the bike and ride. When you reach your destination, you lock it manually to end the trip. The fee is $1 per hour.

Ofo has installed an operations team in Dallas to oversee maintenance-related functions including ensuring their bikes are parked in accordance with local laws and regulations; re-parking bikes if they're blocking right of way; redistributing bikes to address user needs; and cleaning and repairing bikes.

The company is hosting a free introduction period: You can ride the bikes for free until November 14. Meanwhile, on November 4, Ofo will host a launch party at Snyder's Union on the Katy Trail from 9 am-5 pm; there'll be swag, lemonade, and a photo booth.

Ofo follows the dockless format, which means that people can leave the bikes anywhere, versus the docking station system, where people must leave the bike at a set location. Docking stations cost cities money to install while dockless are free.

Docking stations can be less convenient to riders who might have to leave the bicycle somewhere not near their ultimate destination. But dockless programs end up with bicycles strewn across town, with a percentage of bikes being subjected to vandalism. Inner city neighborhoods such as Deep Ellum have seen bicycles pile up on sidewalks.

Ofo joins four other bike-sharing companies in Dallas:

VBikes, which has silver bikes, is the local company, based in Garland.
Limebike, which has green bikes, is based in California.
Spin, which has orange bikes, is based in California.
Zagster, which has white bikes, serves the University of Texas at Dallas campus only.

Ofo's yellow bikes add another color to the Dallas bicycle rainbow.

sustainability

Bird News

Reunion Tower in downtown Dallas initiates action to save birds from dying

Reunion Tower

Downtown Dallas skyline, all lit up.

Reunion Tower, the little ball on the Western edge of downtown Dallas, is famous for its sassy light shows illuminating the Dallas skyline. But in recent years, the building has followed a bird-friendly policy of dimming its lights, and that dimming is about to get underway.

From October 1 through October 21, Reunion Tower will observe the following lighting schedule:

Sundown to 11 pm: lower its lights
11 pm-6 am: go completely dark
6 am-sunrise back to dim

The building enacts these changes to protect birds that are migrating through Texas.

Dallas is on the path of the Central Migratory Flyway, which extends from the Northwest and heads diagonally southeast through Mexico.

Every fall and spring, nearly two billion birds travel through Texas. The bird migration is one of the largest on the planet, and takes place at night. Light attracts migrating birds, making them vulnerable to collisions with buildings and causing them to become disoriented and distracted.

Birds get pulled into urban areas, collide into buildings, and die. Volunteer surveys - in which people go out and count actual dead bodies - in cities such as Dallas, Austin, Houston, and Fort Worth, finds hundreds of dead birds every night. It adds up to nearly a billion birds killed in the U.S. each year.

Dallas-Fort Worth is the third most dangerous area in the U.S. for migratory birds to travel through; Chicago is No. 1, followed by Houston which is No. 2.

As this map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows, Dallas and Houston are both massively lit, representing major obstacles to the success and survival of the birds' migration.

Lights Out Texas was initiated as a statewide effort in Spring 2020 to protect birds from light pollution by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and BirdCast, with the essential support of founding Texas partners Houston Audubon, the Dallas Zoo, and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.

According to Audubon, the actual critical migration period through Dallas is September 6 through October 29. A glittery skyline is surely pretty, but downtown should just shut it down during those times.

nature downtown