"A disaster," "fucking mess," "unfair," "rigged," "cheating," and "likely bots got in there first" were some of the responses on Reddit to the California Air Resources Board's launch of the first public window to apply for an e-bike voucher.
There were only 1,500 vouchers made available for this first launch. It's also been a very long time coming - the program was supposed to launch a year ago, and that was after two years of waiting. So it's perhaps not surprising that there is so much frustration with the rollout.
CARB told Streetsblog that "with 1,500 vouchers for the first round, we did expect they would go quickly given anticipated demand. At one point our queue got to 100,000, and once the 1,500 were reserved we closed the application portal shortly after 6:45 p.m." They said there no technical issues with the website and "any inability to get through was a result of the demand."
People who tried to apply were frustrated that there was a lot of waiting, with little communication about that wait, and were surprised that the window to apply closed abruptly about forty minutes into the launch, leaving many people out.
None of this is surprising. In fact, if there were 100,000 people trying to get these vouchers, that meant a person's chance was something like one in 66. Maybe not as bad as the lottery, but not very good, either.
But some of the thwarted applicants said that it looked like the window opened a few minutes ahead of time, and they seemed to be able to get in the queue before the 6 p.m. scheduled launch. If this is true, then their charges about the system being rigged may have merit.
Pedal Ahead used Queue-it, a software company that creates a virtual waiting room, to run the launch. This is the same software used by Ticketmaster and similar companies that need to allow a lot of simultaneous logins while also keeping track of a queue.
But this process was nothing like a simple transaction involving buying tickets. People had to spend a certain amount of time on the application itself (Pedal Ahead estimated it would take twenty to thirty minutes to fill out), they had to be prepared to upload documents, and they needed to have watched or say they had watched two informational videos before they could complete the application.
So far the complaints are only from people who never even got to fill out the application. While it's not surprising many people lost out, their frustration is still reasonable, and CARB and Pedal Ahead would do well to address that by fixing some of these problems before the second launch window.
There could have been better communication about timing. The system could have been set up to allow people to fill out an application and upload documents ahead of time, so that when it came time for the launch all they had to do was hit "apply." That way the launch would have gone faster, and at the very least people would not have been waiting for an hour to no avail.
And one more point: while it's absolutely important for people to understand how to safely operate an e-bike, this is not the best point in the voucher process to force people to watch a short video about it. There's no reason that requirement couldn't be pushed to a later point in the process. Of course it's beneficial for everyone to learn about e-bike safety, whether they get an e-bike voucher or not, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to force everyone to watch it under duress at this stage.
And a video about climate change? Okay, it's important - but does it belong here?
For more, read BikinginLA's post. He points out that the unfairness may not lie so much in the way the voucher system is set up, but in the fact that so few vouchers were being released in the first place. Note as well that California invests far more in incentives for electric cars than in cheaper, cleaner, more efficient, healthier, and much less damaging e-bikes.
CARB told Streetsblog, "We have received feedback on the website and process and our team was monitoring the launch the entire time... The first round of the launch points to an incredible demand for alternative forms of transportation and a willingness to use cleaner mobility options. We are using the lessons learned from the soft launch and this first round of vouchers for next steps."
"Prospective applicants can check for updates on the website."
Did you get a voucher? Did you try, and have a different experience than what's described here? If so, we'd love to hear from you: melanie [at] streetsblog.org.
