Above photo: Oonee.
These Bike Parking “Pods” Can Help.
Meet Oonee, the Black- and Brown-owned startup trying to put secure bike parking on every block.
In 2019, I rode my bike about one mile to the metro station and locked it to a bike rack out front. Then, I took the train to a friend’s party. When I got back, my bike was gone. I couldn’t afford to buy a new bike, so I went without one for the next two years.
It’s a familiar scenario for many bike riders. In a city like L.A., bike theft feels as everyday as sunny skies and fruit carts selling delicious sliced mango and watermelon.
One report estimates that a whopping two million bikes are stolen every year in America. Many people don’t replace their bikes, a fact that Brooklyn-based cyclist and entrepreneur Shabazz Stuart often cites.
“It’s just the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” he says.
To solve this problem, Stuart co-founded Oonee in 2017 to provide secure bike parking for cities. The startup builds and maintains bike parking pods where cyclists can safely store their bikes for free using a keycard or app. Having this option can help make biking more attractive and more equitable, especially for people who don’t have access to secure spaces to store their bikes at home or work.
The need is growing: Cycling exploded in New York City during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the city now has almost 30,000 e-bike delivery gig workers.
“Their bikes are often $3,000 to $5,000 — they literally cannot afford to lose them,” says Stuart.
Oonee is making inroads on bike parking in not just New York City, but also Jersey City and Minneapolis. In April, the startup announced a partnership with the City of Lakes to provide bike parking and charging facilities across the city. And this summer, Oonee applied to an RFP from NYC DOT that aims to place 500 bike parking hubs on city streets by 2029.
Part of Oonee’s mission is fighting back against the idea that bike infrastructure is primarily for rich white people. Black and Brown people are less likely to have access to secure bike parking and other forms of biking infrastructure. One report from Chicago found that Black and Latino residents had less access to the city’s bicycle network compared to the total population.
Stuart believes venture-backed micromobility companies have perpetuated this gap by catering to a more affluent, less-diverse demographic.
“Communities of color and working-class folk are more likely to derive benefit from secure bike parking facilities than their affluent white counterparts,” he says. About 60% of New York Oonee users are non-white and about a quarter are below Area Median Income (AMI).
What Is An Oonee Pod?
An Oonee bike pod resembles a shipping crate with modular design elements and custom options like greenery on top. A standard pod fits up to 24 bikes, while the expandable version can fit up to 80. There’s also a mini pod that fits eight bikes.
To use the pods, users must register via the Oonee app or by emailing customer support. The process requires identity verification to protect bikes and users. Using a Oonee pod to store your bike is free — but it is first-come-first-serve with a 72-hour limit. Pods can be opened with a keycard or the app.
Oonee first piloted the Oonee pod in Brooklyn Navy Yard. Placing any infrastructure in the public right-of-way can be tricky, but the response has been mostly positive, says Stuart.
“When we launched our first station, there were no riots, there was no hate mail,” he says. “It was just, ‘This is great. Is this really free? Is this really what it says it is? And why aren’t there more of these across the city?’”
Who Will Pay For Micromobility Infrastructure?
It’s the other 800-pound gorilla in the room: Who will pay for the infrastructure that cities need to help residents choose greener modes of transportation like biking or riding an e-scooter?
Stuart is trying to change how cities think about investing in public infrastructure like bike parking and charging. Oonee bike pods are currently free to users — but they cost money not just to install, but to maintain.
The bike pods are primarily funded through advertising on the pods, although it is possible for a city or property owner to pay some or all of the cost.
“I don’t think it’s as simple as a city takes $10 million and plops these down on the street,” says Stuart. “There is a lot more of a service element that has to come into play. And there needs to be a sustainable plan around how these are maintained.”
That’s why he thinks advertising can be a good solution.
“It’s not completely realistic to expect the taxpayers to completely underwrite an ambitious expansion of streetscape infrastructure in every scenario.”
For now, most of the pods in New York City have advertising. This option isn’t always viable, however, according to Gene Oh, founder of BikeHub, a company that has been in the bike parking game for 20 years (Oonee is a partner of BikeHub).
In his mind, the future of bike parking lies in full integration with the existing transportation system — so, transit agencies investing in bike parking as part of a first- last-mile solution.
“The issue that we found, again, just like bike share and even bus stops, is that advertising viability is limited to a select number of locations,” says Oh. “Oftentimes you have locations that are great from an advertising perspective, but really don’t provide the asset or infrastructure where you need it and vice versa.”
However it’s funded, Stuart hopes that cities will invest in bike parking to make biking just as convenient and reliable as other modes of transportation. For him, this is personal — he’s never had a license or driven a car. Oonee was inspired by his own experience with bike theft.
“I had my last bike stolen in 2015,” he says. “I didn’t replace my bike until 2017. It was $2,000.”