Bird is the word
May 21, 2018 7:08 AM Subscribe
in my day, flipping birds had a different meaning
posted by dudemanlives at 7:18 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by dudemanlives at 7:18 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
What a bizarre confluence of the gig-economy, dockless businesses, and the electrification of transport. The article focused on the first two, while I found the most interesting element the ad hoc, distributed nature of the vehicle charging.
posted by gwint at 7:34 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by gwint at 7:34 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
So this little shit makes up to $600 a night ripping off his parents' electricity? I hope he at least pays for his own gas, and stays the hell off my lawn.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:38 AM on May 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:38 AM on May 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
Jesus. I haven’t even heard of Bird. I guess is hasn’t infested Toronto yet. Hopefully ever.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:41 AM on May 21, 2018
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:41 AM on May 21, 2018
Also, once this particular type of venture becomes unsustainable (and it will), I look forward to the same waste problem as drop-bikes, but this time with the added bonus of lithium-ion batteries.
At least in this case, there might be some value recovered by salvaging the batteries.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:42 AM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
At least in this case, there might be some value recovered by salvaging the batteries.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:42 AM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
I wonder how much gasoline is burnt rounding these up every night and distributing them every morning.
posted by traveler_ at 7:44 AM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by traveler_ at 7:44 AM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
Not to say there aren't issues with this venture, but if it's a viable alternative to having everyone piloting three thousand pounds of steel and plastic every time they want to go two miles, then I'm all for it.
(BTW, I've heard there's this thing called climate change.)
posted by mikeand1 at 7:45 AM on May 21, 2018 [19 favorites]
(BTW, I've heard there's this thing called climate change.)
posted by mikeand1 at 7:45 AM on May 21, 2018 [19 favorites]
We have electric drop-bikes here, but haven't seen these Birds yet. I assume the bikes are charged by the company, and not by randoms. The "collection vans" I see picking up bikes are not Toyota minivans, but giant sprinter vans. Too large and cumbersome for average folks I'd guess.
posted by Windopaene at 7:47 AM on May 21, 2018
posted by Windopaene at 7:47 AM on May 21, 2018
I think we are once again seeing that "nasty, brutish, and short," is not the natural Hobbesian condition of humanity, but rather the end-state of Capitalism.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:47 AM on May 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:47 AM on May 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
Dockless bikes and escooters are great and we should make space on the streets for them to operate safely by reducing the 80%+ of our public space that is devoted to dockless privately-owned cars.
posted by ghharr at 7:55 AM on May 21, 2018 [29 favorites]
posted by ghharr at 7:55 AM on May 21, 2018 [29 favorites]
I was about to post that link, seanmpuckett, but with the note that its headline confused me until I was well into the article:
Bird scooters are ruining Venice
People are chasing birds in Venice? Like... pigeons? And it's ruining things for who? Tourists in gondolas? The locals?
posted by clawsoon at 7:55 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Bird scooters are ruining Venice
People are chasing birds in Venice? Like... pigeons? And it's ruining things for who? Tourists in gondolas? The locals?
posted by clawsoon at 7:55 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I do wonder what’s going to happen once these scooters get a bit of wear on them and become unsafe to ride. Surely accidents and backlash will follow.
I’m pretty impressed though that the company found a way to enlist both the supply side and the demand side into a seamless system where everyone benefits and overhead is super minimal. It’s going to change the world for sure, by putting affordable motorized transportation into everyone’s hands. For better and worse. I’ve heard reports of groups of package thieves using the scooters to reach less accessible places in San Francisco—it’s bound to redefine what a “safe” neighborhood is. But at least you can’t easily abduct anyone on a flimsy scooter.
posted by mantecol at 7:56 AM on May 21, 2018
I’m pretty impressed though that the company found a way to enlist both the supply side and the demand side into a seamless system where everyone benefits and overhead is super minimal. It’s going to change the world for sure, by putting affordable motorized transportation into everyone’s hands. For better and worse. I’ve heard reports of groups of package thieves using the scooters to reach less accessible places in San Francisco—it’s bound to redefine what a “safe” neighborhood is. But at least you can’t easily abduct anyone on a flimsy scooter.
posted by mantecol at 7:56 AM on May 21, 2018
I hope these kids enjoy the hell out of the vc money they are getting right now, I feel bad for the people who are going to be dependent on this when the bounty is slowly cut to a sub minimum wage level over the next few months or maybe years.
posted by skewed at 8:07 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by skewed at 8:07 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
seanmpuckett: I'm reminded of the recent thread about e-Bikes in NYC, and the complaints about motorized vehicles on city sidewalks (Including mine). Nobody's tried doing the Electric Razor Scooter startup thing in NYC yet. I suspect it's because our sidewalks, at least in Manhattan and Brooklyn, are already pretty packed most of the time. That doesn't stop dinguses from riding hoverboards and monowheels down crowded sidewalks, and believe me, whenever it happens, I want nothing more than to clothesline those jackasses.
posted by SansPoint at 8:09 AM on May 21, 2018
posted by SansPoint at 8:09 AM on May 21, 2018
So far I haven't seen electric scooters in my city; hopefully the trend will die off before they get here.
posted by octothorpe at 8:12 AM on May 21, 2018
posted by octothorpe at 8:12 AM on May 21, 2018
I hadn't heard about Bird until now, and I don't (yet) understand the apparent distaste for the idea. Isn't is good to reduce the number of petroleum-powered vehicles on the road? Sure, there are pollutants involved in gathering and recharging these scooters, but it must be considerably less than that of the automobiles they displace. And it sounds like the workers in this particular subset of the so-called 'gig economy' are pretty well compensated. Am I missing something? Are the typical Bird users obnoxious shits or something?
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 8:13 AM on May 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 8:13 AM on May 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
The problems are: where do they ride and where are they abandoned between rides. There is no suitable infrastructure for this mode. It’s all externalities. Unpleasant ones.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:16 AM on May 21, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:16 AM on May 21, 2018 [11 favorites]
So this little shit makes up to $600 a night ripping off his parents' electricity? I hope he at least pays for his own gas, and stays the hell off my lawn.
It's hard for me to be mad. Jealous, yeah.
If the article is correct, it doesn't actually cost all that much to charge the scooters. And I don't see why we should assume that parents would feel like they're being taken advantage of.
I think this response sort of encapsulates the hostility young people feel like they're facing from older people: They get yelled at for being lazy, but then they also get yelled at for working the system they've been born into because it's not "real work." A lot of these kids are looking toward a future of jumping from job to job, taking gig work to make ends meet ... and this kid sort of won the lottery by finding gig work at exactly the right time when it was still making money.
Maybe this kid is saving that $600 to pay of the tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt he'll get later.
Are the typical Bird users obnoxious shits or something?
I think the article is mostly focused on the chargers, not the users. And yeah, it looks like as more people get into it, it's become more competitive and that's encouraging/attracting some pretty bad behavior ... but mostly the kind that seems like it affects other chargers and the company, so far.
A ton of electric scooters on pedestrian sidewalks is pretty much guaranteed to cause problems for pedestrians, though.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:19 AM on May 21, 2018 [23 favorites]
It's hard for me to be mad. Jealous, yeah.
If the article is correct, it doesn't actually cost all that much to charge the scooters. And I don't see why we should assume that parents would feel like they're being taken advantage of.
I think this response sort of encapsulates the hostility young people feel like they're facing from older people: They get yelled at for being lazy, but then they also get yelled at for working the system they've been born into because it's not "real work." A lot of these kids are looking toward a future of jumping from job to job, taking gig work to make ends meet ... and this kid sort of won the lottery by finding gig work at exactly the right time when it was still making money.
Maybe this kid is saving that $600 to pay of the tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt he'll get later.
Are the typical Bird users obnoxious shits or something?
I think the article is mostly focused on the chargers, not the users. And yeah, it looks like as more people get into it, it's become more competitive and that's encouraging/attracting some pretty bad behavior ... but mostly the kind that seems like it affects other chargers and the company, so far.
A ton of electric scooters on pedestrian sidewalks is pretty much guaranteed to cause problems for pedestrians, though.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:19 AM on May 21, 2018 [23 favorites]
Dockless bikes and escooters are great and we should make space on the streets for them to operate safely by reducing the 80%+ of our public space that is devoted to dockless privately-owned cars.
This is the thing. It's not that there isn't enough space to integrate e-bikes and e-scooters into our urban transportation systems - it's just that the perfectly ample space is currently taken up almost entirely by car lanes and car parking. And because of the way our systems work, the only way any city will ever restructure itself along those lines is if it gets too annoying not to.
If a person speeds past me on a bike on the sidewalk, I get pissed off just like anybody. But then I try to direct the bulk of that pissed-off-ness toward the infrastructure that made the cyclist think it would be safer or easier for them to ride on the sidewalk than on the road. If a whole bunch of people are going out of their way to avoid using the existing infrastructure, I think it's important to ask whether they might have a point.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:24 AM on May 21, 2018 [29 favorites]
This is the thing. It's not that there isn't enough space to integrate e-bikes and e-scooters into our urban transportation systems - it's just that the perfectly ample space is currently taken up almost entirely by car lanes and car parking. And because of the way our systems work, the only way any city will ever restructure itself along those lines is if it gets too annoying not to.
If a person speeds past me on a bike on the sidewalk, I get pissed off just like anybody. But then I try to direct the bulk of that pissed-off-ness toward the infrastructure that made the cyclist think it would be safer or easier for them to ride on the sidewalk than on the road. If a whole bunch of people are going out of their way to avoid using the existing infrastructure, I think it's important to ask whether they might have a point.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:24 AM on May 21, 2018 [29 favorites]
I dislike the scooter companies a lot for their "blanket the city with them first, ask permission later" tech-bro nonsense -- they don't know or care what the consequences will be and they are taking advantage of a vague regulatory environment to mooch off and clutter public space.
But wow, that LA Times article makes me want to get a membership out of spite. Feel free to call electric assists "pathetic" after you move to San Francisco, leave your car in LA, and have to choose between public transit that takes you 70 minutes to get home or a six mile uphill bike ride (where you can't put your bike on the light rail, and putting it on the bus is risking it getting snatched because you have to leave it unlocked). It's also completely anachronistic to divide people into haves and have-nots based on whether they have a cell phone: not being homeless doesn't mean you have a few thousand lying around to drop on an e-vehicle of your own. The only two groups who live in the city are not "homeless" and "as rich as a former NFL player with two book deals or a 20-something making tech money", FYI.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:27 AM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
But wow, that LA Times article makes me want to get a membership out of spite. Feel free to call electric assists "pathetic" after you move to San Francisco, leave your car in LA, and have to choose between public transit that takes you 70 minutes to get home or a six mile uphill bike ride (where you can't put your bike on the light rail, and putting it on the bus is risking it getting snatched because you have to leave it unlocked). It's also completely anachronistic to divide people into haves and have-nots based on whether they have a cell phone: not being homeless doesn't mean you have a few thousand lying around to drop on an e-vehicle of your own. The only two groups who live in the city are not "homeless" and "as rich as a former NFL player with two book deals or a 20-something making tech money", FYI.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:27 AM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
It is also completely just like rich liberals to shame middle income people for having more resources than the truly destitute.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:32 AM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by en forme de poire at 8:32 AM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
seanmpuckett: The problems are: where do they ride and where are they abandoned between rides. There is no suitable infrastructure for this mode. It’s all externalities. Unpleasant ones.
What kind of infrastructure do you imagine for this low-volume vehicle use? In other words, unless there are a ton of different motorized bikes and scooters, the best thing is for them to co-exist in bicycle-appropriate spaces (bike lanes, road shoulders, or travel lanes if there is no shoulder -- bicycles are permitted on most roadways and should be treated as really small, fragile, slow motorcycles).
Are these facilities getting clogged? GREAT! Congestion means the systems are being used, and can use more capacity.
Or is the issue the lack of official parking spaces for tiny, toss-able vehicles? More bike locks or bike stands! Everyone benefits again!
Related: The Vehicle of the Future Has Two Wheels, Handlebars, and Is a Bike (Clive Thompson for Wired, May 13, 2018) -- from docked to dockless bike sharing, to dockless electric bikes for extended range and greater mobility forall many.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:37 AM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
What kind of infrastructure do you imagine for this low-volume vehicle use? In other words, unless there are a ton of different motorized bikes and scooters, the best thing is for them to co-exist in bicycle-appropriate spaces (bike lanes, road shoulders, or travel lanes if there is no shoulder -- bicycles are permitted on most roadways and should be treated as really small, fragile, slow motorcycles).
Are these facilities getting clogged? GREAT! Congestion means the systems are being used, and can use more capacity.
Or is the issue the lack of official parking spaces for tiny, toss-able vehicles? More bike locks or bike stands! Everyone benefits again!
Related: The Vehicle of the Future Has Two Wheels, Handlebars, and Is a Bike (Clive Thompson for Wired, May 13, 2018) -- from docked to dockless bike sharing, to dockless electric bikes for extended range and greater mobility for
posted by filthy light thief at 8:37 AM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
If the problem is urban clutter, as some seem to suggest, perhaps version 2.0 will be able to slowly roll itself to a sensible collection point once dismounted, navigating in a fashion similar to rolling delivery drones. That would be interesting. Shared electric scooters could be a boon for cities, if someone can get the execution right. It would be nice to have fewer cars.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 8:41 AM on May 21, 2018
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 8:41 AM on May 21, 2018
> I don't (yet) understand the apparent distaste for the idea.
Hello from San Francisco, where these scooters - Bird and Lime and at least one other, can't remember - appeared literally overnight, with the companies putting them in locations (like near the Cal train station) where they thought they'd get heavy use without engaging with any city transit people or neighborhood residents or anything. Just "here have a bunch of things on the sidewalk, it's not OUR problem if people don't use or park them correctly!"
Having fewer cars in the core of the city would be awesome! What is not awesome is VC-backed companies like this "disprupting" whatever the fuck they feel like. Also, I really resent having to look both ways before I cross the damn sidewalk.
posted by rtha at 8:47 AM on May 21, 2018 [23 favorites]
Hello from San Francisco, where these scooters - Bird and Lime and at least one other, can't remember - appeared literally overnight, with the companies putting them in locations (like near the Cal train station) where they thought they'd get heavy use without engaging with any city transit people or neighborhood residents or anything. Just "here have a bunch of things on the sidewalk, it's not OUR problem if people don't use or park them correctly!"
Having fewer cars in the core of the city would be awesome! What is not awesome is VC-backed companies like this "disprupting" whatever the fuck they feel like. Also, I really resent having to look both ways before I cross the damn sidewalk.
posted by rtha at 8:47 AM on May 21, 2018 [23 favorites]
Any dockless company that includes in their business model incentives for getting the things back to where they should be is an improvement over current typical practices. We don't have dockless here in Pittsburgh, but I recently went to DC and Jumpin' Jehoshaphat those bikes are a damn plague. Like, I cannot comprehend what state of mind I would have to be in for, "Lemme just leave this entire whole bicycle collapsed in the middle of a public thoroughfare/thrown into some bushes/upside-down on someone's lawn" to seem like a good idea. And yet....
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:48 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:48 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
this is of course the original circa-2000 sales pitch for the Segway.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:48 AM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by vogon_poet at 8:48 AM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
If this is the app that gets rid of on street parking and replaces it with bike lanes then great. I love the idea. But rn it’s goitto be shitty for pedestrians and poor people.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:48 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:48 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
In addition to the problem with the tech-bro disruptors, it sounds like people aren't treating them like bikes with regard to rules of the road and all that.
Time for more bike education for all!
posted by filthy light thief at 8:50 AM on May 21, 2018
Time for more bike education for all!
posted by filthy light thief at 8:50 AM on May 21, 2018
Capped at 15 mph they can use bike infrastructure, at least here. There is plenty of that at least in theory, so I would imagine the main reason why people go onto the sidewalk (which is clueless and annoying and shitty, yes) is that sometimes the bike lane is full of e.g., Ubers with their four ways on, or construction vehicles, or a large group of pedestrians spilling off the sidewalk, or dangerous pavement conditions. I would say most daily drivers that I've met in the US also just don't think bike infrastructure should exist, and so they refuse to accept that cars occupying it is a problem.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:51 AM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by en forme de poire at 8:51 AM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
God damn you kids, having fun and earning money!
posted by chavenet at 8:56 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 8:56 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
As rtha said though we literally have had three scooter companies flood our streets within the last month or two. They are inescapable here. And many of the people riding them seem to be treating them like a ten year old riding a Razor in the suburbs, as opposed to an adult commuting to work using very congested shared infra. L'enfer, etc.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:01 AM on May 21, 2018
posted by en forme de poire at 9:01 AM on May 21, 2018
I did see a very cool thing a couple weeks ago, where a dude collecting these (broken ones, maybe? because it was daytime so collecting them for charging seems unlikely) had jenga'd a number of them onto the scooter he was riding....on the sidewalk, sigh, but he kept far to one side, went pretty slowly, and used a bicycle bell. He was even wearing a helmet!
posted by rtha at 9:05 AM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by rtha at 9:05 AM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
Dockless bikes and escooters are great and we should make space on the streets for them to operate safely by reducing the 80%+ of our public space that is devoted to dockless privately-owned cars.
So, I was just looking at the map for my doc appointment, trying to figure out my bus and if I could make the appointment with less time, because it's a rural bus and a far away location, so it's a 6 hour adventure for a 30 minute appointment.
Then I did the route for bike. It's just 18 miles and 300 feet of elevation. I could probably do it in about an hour and a half. It's a nice day. It'd be a pleasant ride.
And then I remembered the lack of bike lane or shoulder on a twisty forested road and a bunch of inattentive drivers making it unsafe and impossible, with most of the drivers blissfully unaware of their privilege, unaware that (or dedicated lane) is the only thing stopping me from taking that nice, healthy bike ride home from the doc.
And I just got really fucking mad.
posted by loquacious at 9:07 AM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
So, I was just looking at the map for my doc appointment, trying to figure out my bus and if I could make the appointment with less time, because it's a rural bus and a far away location, so it's a 6 hour adventure for a 30 minute appointment.
Then I did the route for bike. It's just 18 miles and 300 feet of elevation. I could probably do it in about an hour and a half. It's a nice day. It'd be a pleasant ride.
And then I remembered the lack of bike lane or shoulder on a twisty forested road and a bunch of inattentive drivers making it unsafe and impossible, with most of the drivers blissfully unaware of their privilege, unaware that (or dedicated lane) is the only thing stopping me from taking that nice, healthy bike ride home from the doc.
And I just got really fucking mad.
posted by loquacious at 9:07 AM on May 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
This would work so well in Edinburgh, which has turned a lot of old train lines into pedestrian/cycle routes that thread through the city. Lots of people don't know these are there, which is a shame - they're mostly in cuttings edged with verges and large trees, so walking along them feels more like a country lane than an urban centre - at least until you suddenly pop out onto a busy street.
Not sure what the insurance issues would be, though: those have kept Segways and the like off the road/pavement here.
posted by Devonian at 9:13 AM on May 21, 2018
Not sure what the insurance issues would be, though: those have kept Segways and the like off the road/pavement here.
posted by Devonian at 9:13 AM on May 21, 2018
Interesting article—looking forward to seeing how all this plays out in the long run.
As a pedestrian, I would much prefer sharing space with electric scooters than with Segways, which for reasons I can't fully explain, annoy the bejesus out of me.
No doubt, the bastardized spelling of one of my favorite words contributes to my annimosity.
posted by she's not there at 9:14 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
As a pedestrian, I would much prefer sharing space with electric scooters than with Segways, which for reasons I can't fully explain, annoy the bejesus out of me.
No doubt, the bastardized spelling of one of my favorite words contributes to my annimosity.
posted by she's not there at 9:14 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
"Michael"
posted by en forme de poire at 9:15 AM on May 21, 2018
posted by en forme de poire at 9:15 AM on May 21, 2018
> ...if it's a viable alternative to having everyone piloting three thousand pounds of steel and plastic every time they want to go two miles, then I'm all for it. (BTW, I've heard there's this thing called climate change.)
You missed the part in the first paragraph of the story in which the kid is driving a minivan all night to pick up stray scooters and driving them back out to drop points in the morning.
posted by ardgedee at 9:16 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
You missed the part in the first paragraph of the story in which the kid is driving a minivan all night to pick up stray scooters and driving them back out to drop points in the morning.
posted by ardgedee at 9:16 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
which has turned a lot of old train lines into pedestrian/cycle routes
OMG they call it the "innertube"!? Want! *cries in jealousy*
OK, ok, I have one of the best bike paths in the US right down the road, the Olympic Discovery Trail. But it doesn't really go anywhere useful.
posted by loquacious at 9:20 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
OMG they call it the "innertube"!? Want! *cries in jealousy*
OK, ok, I have one of the best bike paths in the US right down the road, the Olympic Discovery Trail. But it doesn't really go anywhere useful.
posted by loquacious at 9:20 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I wonder how much gasoline is burnt rounding these up every night and distributing them every morning.
Guess what, all the bike share services I know also have drivers that go around and redistribute bikes from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration. Montreal's Bixi famously noticed that all their bikes tend to gravitate downhill from the mountain at the centre of Montreal island.
posted by furtive at 9:23 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Guess what, all the bike share services I know also have drivers that go around and redistribute bikes from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration. Montreal's Bixi famously noticed that all their bikes tend to gravitate downhill from the mountain at the centre of Montreal island.
posted by furtive at 9:23 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have "drop foot" which means I walk like one of my shoes weighs 100 pounds. My unassisted walking range is extremely short. My issues with walking make me reluctant to go to big cities, but if I could be assured of getting off a train and finding these, it would make all the difference. That is if rude people don't ruin things first. I hope people figure out how to not be jerks.
posted by elizilla at 9:24 AM on May 21, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by elizilla at 9:24 AM on May 21, 2018 [12 favorites]
There is a train station I know, and on the curb just outside sits a rentable electric scooter that had its motor torn out and is covered with graffiti. The sight somehow warms my spiteful heart.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:30 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 9:30 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
seanmpuckett: ok I get it now (La times)
That sounded absolutely Victorian in its disdain and hauteur -- the audible monocle-popping was lovely!
Oh, wait, it's sincere? HAHAHAHAHA
posted by wenestvedt at 9:31 AM on May 21, 2018
That sounded absolutely Victorian in its disdain and hauteur -- the audible monocle-popping was lovely!
Oh, wait, it's sincere? HAHAHAHAHA
posted by wenestvedt at 9:31 AM on May 21, 2018
Hello from San Francisco, where these scooters - Bird and Lime and at least one other, can't remember - appeared literally overnight, with the companies putting them in locations (like near the Cal train station) where they thought they'd get heavy use without engaging with any city transit people or neighborhood residents or anything. Just "here have a bunch of things on the sidewalk, it's not OUR problem if people don't use or park them correctly!"
Native San Franciscan whose been in exile for about 15 years but was just back for an extended visit and yeah, its hard to fully explain to people who aren't there in the midst of it just how stupid the roll out of these things was. I took a pic of one that had been attached to the tensioning wire supporting a utility pole - it was just dangling there easily 3 feet off the ground.
There is zero question that adults riding scooters look like fools but that the idea, if executed by some people who seemed remotely inclined to forethought, isn't a total dud.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:31 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Native San Franciscan whose been in exile for about 15 years but was just back for an extended visit and yeah, its hard to fully explain to people who aren't there in the midst of it just how stupid the roll out of these things was. I took a pic of one that had been attached to the tensioning wire supporting a utility pole - it was just dangling there easily 3 feet off the ground.
There is zero question that adults riding scooters look like fools but that the idea, if executed by some people who seemed remotely inclined to forethought, isn't a total dud.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:31 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
You missed the part in the first paragraph of the story in which the kid is driving a minivan all night to pick up stray scooters and driving them back out to drop points in the morning
Of course, one car (or even a few hundred) doing this is still massively better than traffic clogging the streets.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:32 AM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
Of course, one car (or even a few hundred) doing this is still massively better than traffic clogging the streets.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:32 AM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
Guess what, all the bike share services I know also have drivers that go around and redistribute bikes from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration. Montreal's Bixi famously noticed that all their bikes tend to gravitate downhill from the mountain at the centre of Montreal island.
Im like 99.99% certain I have seen bike-powered trailers redistributing NiceRide bikes in the Twin Cities.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:32 AM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Im like 99.99% certain I have seen bike-powered trailers redistributing NiceRide bikes in the Twin Cities.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:32 AM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
The back and forth in this thread has a familiar, oft repeated pattern that applies to many technical systems.
It's cool that these kids are finding a way to get some money out of an otherwise exploitative system. I'm also a big e-bike/e-scooter evangelist. As with other distributed, networked transportation technologies, the potential for social and environmental improvement is great and, as many have pointed out here, cars and "car culture" are a blight. Especially in high-density communities. People are almost universally happier when they spend less time in cars. Furthermore, as has also been mentioned already, these ultra-light vehicles can be viewed as assistive technologies for people who would otherwise find it difficult to participate in a pedestrian culture.
But capitalism still sucks, with it's proven knack for turning everything it touches into shit. Especially the current, virulentlydisruptive extractive version, fueled by vast sums of idle cash in the offshore accounts of the parasite classes.
The answer is community-owned and operated (or, equivalently, local worker-owned) versions of exactly the same sorts of systems.
posted by mondo dentro at 9:43 AM on May 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
It's cool that these kids are finding a way to get some money out of an otherwise exploitative system. I'm also a big e-bike/e-scooter evangelist. As with other distributed, networked transportation technologies, the potential for social and environmental improvement is great and, as many have pointed out here, cars and "car culture" are a blight. Especially in high-density communities. People are almost universally happier when they spend less time in cars. Furthermore, as has also been mentioned already, these ultra-light vehicles can be viewed as assistive technologies for people who would otherwise find it difficult to participate in a pedestrian culture.
But capitalism still sucks, with it's proven knack for turning everything it touches into shit. Especially the current, virulently
The answer is community-owned and operated (or, equivalently, local worker-owned) versions of exactly the same sorts of systems.
posted by mondo dentro at 9:43 AM on May 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
I have a problem with my knee that flares up about once a year and makes it very painful and slow to walk. This tech would enable me to get around on public transport and scooter during those times. When healthy I'd rather walk, and I wouldn't buy a scooter I don't normally need.
I see the charger technician job being a temporary phenomenon, until scooters can drive themselves to a dock like a Roomba does, which has to be the next step. There will still be jobs for repair techs though.
posted by w0mbat at 10:05 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I see the charger technician job being a temporary phenomenon, until scooters can drive themselves to a dock like a Roomba does, which has to be the next step. There will still be jobs for repair techs though.
posted by w0mbat at 10:05 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I was pretty impressed by this guy, who had a Lime scooter and was matching his skateboarding buddies jump for jump.
posted by zachlipton at 10:19 AM on May 21, 2018
posted by zachlipton at 10:19 AM on May 21, 2018
its hard to fully explain to people who aren't there in the midst of it just how stupid the roll out of these things was. I took a pic of one that had been attached to the tensioning wire supporting a utility pole - it was just dangling there easily 3 feet off the ground.
I can't tell from this comment - do you think the company did that? I mean, what you are documenting is vandalism - not a 'stupid rollout'. Unless you think they should all have guards next to them.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:27 AM on May 21, 2018
I can't tell from this comment - do you think the company did that? I mean, what you are documenting is vandalism - not a 'stupid rollout'. Unless you think they should all have guards next to them.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:27 AM on May 21, 2018
> I have a problem with my knee that flares up about once a year and makes it very painful and slow to walk.
I'm currently having a thing that makes walking unusually slow and full of effort; the bus stop near my work leaves me about a 3-block (long blocks) walk to the office, and some mornings I sure do gaze upon the scooters there at my bus stop and wonder if today will be the day. Honestly, though, I am scared to ride on the street, and I won't ride on the sidewalk. So I mosey. I amble. I stroll. Takes me a little longer to walk to the distance, but that's okay.
posted by rtha at 10:31 AM on May 21, 2018
I'm currently having a thing that makes walking unusually slow and full of effort; the bus stop near my work leaves me about a 3-block (long blocks) walk to the office, and some mornings I sure do gaze upon the scooters there at my bus stop and wonder if today will be the day. Honestly, though, I am scared to ride on the street, and I won't ride on the sidewalk. So I mosey. I amble. I stroll. Takes me a little longer to walk to the distance, but that's okay.
posted by rtha at 10:31 AM on May 21, 2018
Is it just passe to talk about the gig economy problems (and/or already well understood ?) - I'm guessing the kids are 1099 employees, do they get instructions on documenting expenses so tax time doesn't completely drain the bank. What's the per-hour wage rate work out to ?
posted by k5.user at 10:45 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by k5.user at 10:45 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I can't tell from this comment - do you think the company did that? I mean, what you are documenting is vandalism - not a 'stupid rollout'.
If the locals are making the effort to literally throw your product into the sea (in the case of Santa Monica, though San Francisco has it's own piers so I'm guessing the Bay is full of these things), perhaps you didn't do enough local engagement before the rollout.
posted by sideshow at 10:51 AM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
If the locals are making the effort to literally throw your product into the sea (in the case of Santa Monica, though San Francisco has it's own piers so I'm guessing the Bay is full of these things), perhaps you didn't do enough local engagement before the rollout.
posted by sideshow at 10:51 AM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
A lot of my neighbors act as chargers since we have Birds everywhere around here. Apparently it used to be more lucrative, but competition has dragged it down. There are little tricks they can use to maximize profitability. Capturing 4-5 scooters at once and stacking them to ride back (which seems highly dangerous). Trading them around in circles. It all seems like more trouble than it's worth, but to each his own. My main problem is people going around hunting for ghost birds want to find them at any cost. Climbing my fence because they think one is there when it's actually next door or something. I don't mind the scooters (and they're very useful around this area), but the capturing folks could have a bit more respect for personal space.
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:55 AM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:55 AM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
If the locals are making the effort to literally throw your product into the sea (in the case of Santa Monica, though San Francisco has it's own piers so I'm guessing the Bay is full of these things), perhaps you didn't do enough local engagement before the rollout.
That doesn't follow, unless 'local engagement' means "ask every single person if they pinky swear they will not mishandle your stuff". I mean, like huge numbers of freeway signs in CA have wire around them so they can't be vandalized.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:05 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
That doesn't follow, unless 'local engagement' means "ask every single person if they pinky swear they will not mishandle your stuff". I mean, like huge numbers of freeway signs in CA have wire around them so they can't be vandalized.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:05 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Local engagement can mean "talk to city transit officials about use of PUBLIC SPACES for these things, possibly (probably) have to go through some amount of public hearings, get interviewed by local press so residents know what's coming, offer people (who are not even venture capitalists!) a chance to weigh in on what you're offering."
Declining all of this means that many people may respond in kind. That is, you drop your scooters wherever, so we drop your scooters wherever. Disruption is not a one-way street.
posted by rtha at 11:22 AM on May 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
Declining all of this means that many people may respond in kind. That is, you drop your scooters wherever, so we drop your scooters wherever. Disruption is not a one-way street.
posted by rtha at 11:22 AM on May 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
I understand why it's illegal and unethical to just throw these things in the bay. But is it legal and/or ethical to cover their handlebars and charging ports with peanut butter?
posted by aubilenon at 11:40 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by aubilenon at 11:40 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm a Santa Monica resident and witnessed the roll out of Bird. As usual, there's no shortage of outrage, seemingly because had the gall to do.it without the blessing of the local government, and by extension, every petty NIMBY asshole who will oppose want such venture because they can, and then wrap themselves in the shelter of civic mindedness. Santa Monica is full of these fuckers.
The scooters are all over West L.A. now West of the 405. I can't believe anyone making a serious argument that they are making things worse. The seem much more sensible that the bikeshare program here, and far more utilized. But hey, people look dorky riding them around, so there's that.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:46 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
The scooters are all over West L.A. now West of the 405. I can't believe anyone making a serious argument that they are making things worse. The seem much more sensible that the bikeshare program here, and far more utilized. But hey, people look dorky riding them around, so there's that.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:46 AM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
But is it legal and/or ethical to cover their handlebars and charging ports with peanut butter?
Its not just peanut butter. [article contains discussion of, but not photos, of poop being used to vandalize scooters]
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:57 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Its not just peanut butter. [article contains discussion of, but not photos, of poop being used to vandalize scooters]
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:57 AM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
How have these not just been seized en-masse by enterprising hackers who need parts? They're not locked, they're not licensed with the city, seems like they're abandoned property to me.
The hackers don't want 'em? What about a city employee deciding to drum up some revenue by just collecting a bunch of stray Birds and impounding them until claimed, and charging an impound fee?
posted by explosion at 12:21 PM on May 21, 2018
The hackers don't want 'em? What about a city employee deciding to drum up some revenue by just collecting a bunch of stray Birds and impounding them until claimed, and charging an impound fee?
posted by explosion at 12:21 PM on May 21, 2018
The main issue, to me, is people riding them on sidewalks. Yeah, they're not "supposed" to (although it might actually be legal? I believe in California riding bicycles is legal on the sidewalks unless the city/country says otherwise). But its quite common and these things are a LOT faster than pedestrians.
posted by thefoxgod at 1:08 PM on May 21, 2018
posted by thefoxgod at 1:08 PM on May 21, 2018
So, like --- half of my dislike comes from nearly being hit by them a bunch and the other half comes from the general style of this kind of company (Uber, Lyft, etc) where they don't engage with the local government/citizens at all before deploying this kind of thing.
posted by thefoxgod at 1:09 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by thefoxgod at 1:09 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
where they don't engage with the local government/citizens at all before deploying this kind of thing.
I understand that, but local government created 'taxi medallions' which created the worst of all worlds, gave bad transit options to most groups, and are ridiculously overpriced for the services they provide. And it would mean months of meetings that essentially *accomplish nothing* while they obviously have real demand and are filling in short-distance mobility solutions which the cities around the US have never given a flip about.
I'd be fine with 'engage the local citizens' if its history didn't mean marginalizing everyone that isn't rich and white. As it is, they are groups that don't deserve 'engagement'. Bicycles and walking have been legit transit options for 150 years - if your local government had any desire to build dedicated space for faster-than walking vehicles they've had plenty of time to do it. It's time to force their hand.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:27 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
I understand that, but local government created 'taxi medallions' which created the worst of all worlds, gave bad transit options to most groups, and are ridiculously overpriced for the services they provide. And it would mean months of meetings that essentially *accomplish nothing* while they obviously have real demand and are filling in short-distance mobility solutions which the cities around the US have never given a flip about.
I'd be fine with 'engage the local citizens' if its history didn't mean marginalizing everyone that isn't rich and white. As it is, they are groups that don't deserve 'engagement'. Bicycles and walking have been legit transit options for 150 years - if your local government had any desire to build dedicated space for faster-than walking vehicles they've had plenty of time to do it. It's time to force their hand.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:27 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
These things have made walking --- an even older form of transportation --- much worse. (Bikes and skateboards are part of that, but Bird scooters are WAY more common on sidewalks than bikes / skateboards / etc). So if the argument is about what is best for transportation, I still think these are far more of a negative than a positive.
(The standard response from supporters is that people "shouldn't" ride them on the sidewalks, but thats meaningless as everyone does. It's like arguing that bicyclists are "supposed" to be stopping at stop signs -- that may be true, but does not reflect reality and no one has good proposals as to how you would actually enforce these rules)
posted by thefoxgod at 1:47 PM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
(The standard response from supporters is that people "shouldn't" ride them on the sidewalks, but thats meaningless as everyone does. It's like arguing that bicyclists are "supposed" to be stopping at stop signs -- that may be true, but does not reflect reality and no one has good proposals as to how you would actually enforce these rules)
posted by thefoxgod at 1:47 PM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
I recently lived for a while in a market (Singapore) where electric scooters of the non-rental variety had taken off. It was fairly cumbersome to take one on the train, and I would never do it during rush hour, but it was super convenient for zipping from home to public transport or for quick errands and I ended up selling my scooter for close to what I paid for it. They are fun to drive as well although undoubtedly the opposite of cool.
Maybe these rentals are a stopgap until a solution emerges which is light and easy enough to lug around?
posted by ejoey at 1:51 PM on May 21, 2018
Maybe these rentals are a stopgap until a solution emerges which is light and easy enough to lug around?
posted by ejoey at 1:51 PM on May 21, 2018
> if your local government had any desire to build dedicated space for faster-than walking vehicles
Oh my lord, Bird et al don't give a shit about this. They don't care about if local government is unresponsive to the needs of its citizens. They care about showing their investors that they can turn a profit as fast as possible, because that $100 million dollars in VC funding has to have something to show.
posted by rtha at 2:03 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
Oh my lord, Bird et al don't give a shit about this. They don't care about if local government is unresponsive to the needs of its citizens. They care about showing their investors that they can turn a profit as fast as possible, because that $100 million dollars in VC funding has to have something to show.
posted by rtha at 2:03 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
I wonder what are good ways to solve the problem of users leaving the scooters in bad places like the middle of the sidewalk?
I thought of one, which is for each company to: 1) communicate guidelines for acceptable places to leave scooters, 2) solicit geotagged photos of mis-placed scooters from the public, and then 3) fine or suspend users who were determined to have violated the guidelines (I think this could be done without a huge amount of labor). So the company holds its users accountable, and the city holds each company accountable. And members of the public get to do something constructive with their annoyance.
Maybe the enforcement could even be automated, if the scooter companies could get hold of really precise maps of cities, and were able to locate the scooters precisely within those maps, and had programmatic rules about where it was and wasn't okay to leave them.
I'm guessing the reason the rollout seemed so hasty and didn't try and tackle issues like this at all is because of the tight race between Lime, Bird, etc. to be first to market.
posted by gold-in-green at 2:20 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I thought of one, which is for each company to: 1) communicate guidelines for acceptable places to leave scooters, 2) solicit geotagged photos of mis-placed scooters from the public, and then 3) fine or suspend users who were determined to have violated the guidelines (I think this could be done without a huge amount of labor). So the company holds its users accountable, and the city holds each company accountable. And members of the public get to do something constructive with their annoyance.
Maybe the enforcement could even be automated, if the scooter companies could get hold of really precise maps of cities, and were able to locate the scooters precisely within those maps, and had programmatic rules about where it was and wasn't okay to leave them.
I'm guessing the reason the rollout seemed so hasty and didn't try and tackle issues like this at all is because of the tight race between Lime, Bird, etc. to be first to market.
posted by gold-in-green at 2:20 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
If these things piss enough people off there will be no way they can make a profit because they have got to be a couple hundred bucks each even in bulk, and there's any number of ways to irreparably destroy one in seconds, for free.
It's just such a waste of what might be a great idea to deploy it in a way that causes the absolute most amount of irritation to the most number of other people.
And what's to stop the competing companies from driving around and swiping competitor's scooters and destroying them.
I swear the only money to be made in this shit show is by the Chinese manufacturers turning them out.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:22 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's just such a waste of what might be a great idea to deploy it in a way that causes the absolute most amount of irritation to the most number of other people.
And what's to stop the competing companies from driving around and swiping competitor's scooters and destroying them.
I swear the only money to be made in this shit show is by the Chinese manufacturers turning them out.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:22 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
(The standard response from supporters is that people "shouldn't" ride them on the sidewalks, but thats meaningless as everyone does. It's like arguing that bicyclists are "supposed" to be stopping at stop signs -- that may be true, but does not reflect reality and no one has good proposals as to how you would actually enforce these rules)
The limitation of this viewpoint is that it assumes the streetscape itself is static. So if a person is using street infrastructure contrary to the way it was designed to be used, they are doing something morally wrong, and ought to adjust their behavior. But what if the design is the problem?
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:30 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
The limitation of this viewpoint is that it assumes the streetscape itself is static. So if a person is using street infrastructure contrary to the way it was designed to be used, they are doing something morally wrong, and ought to adjust their behavior. But what if the design is the problem?
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:30 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
I thought of one, which is for each company to: 1) communicate guidelines for acceptable places to leave scooters, 2) solicit geotagged photos of mis-placed scooters from the public, and then 3) fine or suspend users who were determined to have violated the guidelines (I think this could be done without a huge amount of labor). So the company holds its users accountable, and the city holds each company accountable. And members of the public get to do something constructive with their annoyance.
Bird makes you take a picture of how you left it when you end your ride. I guess you could just take a picture of your thumb or whatever but there is at least some data there to check up on potentially misbehaving users. And, as a user it gives you some proof that you weren't the one behaving badly in case some maniac come along after you parked it and smears it with peanut butter and chucks it in a bush.
posted by ghharr at 2:44 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Bird makes you take a picture of how you left it when you end your ride. I guess you could just take a picture of your thumb or whatever but there is at least some data there to check up on potentially misbehaving users. And, as a user it gives you some proof that you weren't the one behaving badly in case some maniac come along after you parked it and smears it with peanut butter and chucks it in a bush.
posted by ghharr at 2:44 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
The North American streetscape design has been an enormous problem for decades: despite the proven success of Vision Zero campaigns in Scandinavian countries there still is almost no movement towards making active transportation safer and more useful. Even when there are countless studies and proven benefits saying that cities need to clear the cars out during rush hour so transit can run efficiently, start charging market rates for parking, and get more people biking, still it doesn't happen. These scooters are more or less the same "mode" as cycling; moderate speed, modest kinetic energy, best for short/medium distances.
The problem isn't technical; we know how to build safe and efficient streets for everyone -- it's political. Automobile drivers simply will not allow any change to the status quo.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:45 PM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
The problem isn't technical; we know how to build safe and efficient streets for everyone -- it's political. Automobile drivers simply will not allow any change to the status quo.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:45 PM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
I'm a long-time commuter cyclist, and on reflection my view on these is very similar to my view on self-driving cars: there's a hope and there's a fear.
With the cars, the hope is they reach a critical mass that encourages a new norm of traffic behavior toward safety and respect for the lethal potential of motor vehicles. But the fear is, like the first introduction of cars, the critical mass creates a new norm (and eventually laws) favoring the preferences of motorists and harming other road uses.
And down in the details of particulars, I worry about the fact that good driving seems to require a certain theory of mind: "ok now we've made eye contact, I think you know I know you see me and vice versa, and predict your future actions accordingly." I have no idea how easy it'll be to predict autonomous cars' "minds", nor how well they understand us bicycles.
With the electric scooters, my hope is they popularize non-car traffic and encourage better infrastructure toward all light vehicles, and the U.S. forever loses its horrible mentality toward bicycles in favor of Dutch-style infrastructure, laws, and culture.
But my fear is it'll be a sort of "eternal September" for two-wheelers, with a whole bunch of newbies poorly trained in the laws or pragmatics of being a small vehicle in a car/pedestrian world. I'm worried they'll make a lot of mistakes, annoy a lot of people, and lead to a crackdown on all of us with unsafe reactionary laws.
posted by traveler_ at 4:42 PM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
With the cars, the hope is they reach a critical mass that encourages a new norm of traffic behavior toward safety and respect for the lethal potential of motor vehicles. But the fear is, like the first introduction of cars, the critical mass creates a new norm (and eventually laws) favoring the preferences of motorists and harming other road uses.
And down in the details of particulars, I worry about the fact that good driving seems to require a certain theory of mind: "ok now we've made eye contact, I think you know I know you see me and vice versa, and predict your future actions accordingly." I have no idea how easy it'll be to predict autonomous cars' "minds", nor how well they understand us bicycles.
With the electric scooters, my hope is they popularize non-car traffic and encourage better infrastructure toward all light vehicles, and the U.S. forever loses its horrible mentality toward bicycles in favor of Dutch-style infrastructure, laws, and culture.
But my fear is it'll be a sort of "eternal September" for two-wheelers, with a whole bunch of newbies poorly trained in the laws or pragmatics of being a small vehicle in a car/pedestrian world. I'm worried they'll make a lot of mistakes, annoy a lot of people, and lead to a crackdown on all of us with unsafe reactionary laws.
posted by traveler_ at 4:42 PM on May 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
There are a lot of different ways that any problems with parking scooters and bikes can be addressed. I like Austin's new stencils.
One of the many reasons that bikeshare (and now scooter-share) has taken off is that there are so many destinations with no safe, secure, convenient bike parking. The kind that people parking cars take for granted, both in the public right of way and in enormous mandated private parking allotments.
Who'd drive a private car anywhere if there were no expectation of someplace appropriate to store it at every destination? It might not be immediately in front of a building entrance, but pretty much all parking complaints by drivers are about having to walk a bit too far or pay something to store their car, not about not having it at all or about having cars routinely stolen or vandalized with no recourse. Given how much room cars take up, those aren't reasonable complaints.
Wow. Look at These Astounding Photos of Abandoned Dockless Vehicles in America.
As for the negative externalities imposed by driving a minivan around to pick up scooters for charging: at least that driver's providing some kind of transportation assistance to a number of other people while it's doing the exact same thing every other driver does.
I, for one, welcome our new scooter-charging overlords.
posted by asperity at 4:42 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
One of the many reasons that bikeshare (and now scooter-share) has taken off is that there are so many destinations with no safe, secure, convenient bike parking. The kind that people parking cars take for granted, both in the public right of way and in enormous mandated private parking allotments.
Who'd drive a private car anywhere if there were no expectation of someplace appropriate to store it at every destination? It might not be immediately in front of a building entrance, but pretty much all parking complaints by drivers are about having to walk a bit too far or pay something to store their car, not about not having it at all or about having cars routinely stolen or vandalized with no recourse. Given how much room cars take up, those aren't reasonable complaints.
Wow. Look at These Astounding Photos of Abandoned Dockless Vehicles in America.
As for the negative externalities imposed by driving a minivan around to pick up scooters for charging: at least that driver's providing some kind of transportation assistance to a number of other people while it's doing the exact same thing every other driver does.
I, for one, welcome our new scooter-charging overlords.
posted by asperity at 4:42 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
I feel like a solution to a user leaving an electric scooter in the middle of the sidewalk is just to push it out of the way. I mean, they're just scooters; it's not like they're dragon's teeth. You can just move them.
Bikes are a bit more annoying because they're larger, heavier, and more cumbersome to manhandle around. Bikes are also much more of a menace on a sidewalk; I feel like it would at least be possible to ride an electric scooter politely on a sidewalk, unless it was a really crowded one. After all, on a bike if you go really slow you wobble all over the place and then fall over. On a scooter, you just turn into a pedestrian. Also, a bike has a much higher top speed than an electric scooter.
I feel like a lot of folks in this thread are looking for reasons to shoot this idea down mainly out of principle, because around here we don't really care for tech culture and disruption and all that. I feel like the criticisms are a little bit knee-jerky.
What I see here is a system that increases people's mobility, reduces automobile use, lowers pollution, and provides a source of casual income to a bunch of people. Those are pretty big public goods! I think that having to occasionally nudge a scooter out of the way is a pretty small price to pay. I like this idea a lot better than rideshares or drop bikes, and certainly a lot better than mandatory car ownership for anyone who ever wants to leave their house. The negative externalities here seem remarkably small.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:51 PM on May 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
Bikes are a bit more annoying because they're larger, heavier, and more cumbersome to manhandle around. Bikes are also much more of a menace on a sidewalk; I feel like it would at least be possible to ride an electric scooter politely on a sidewalk, unless it was a really crowded one. After all, on a bike if you go really slow you wobble all over the place and then fall over. On a scooter, you just turn into a pedestrian. Also, a bike has a much higher top speed than an electric scooter.
I feel like a lot of folks in this thread are looking for reasons to shoot this idea down mainly out of principle, because around here we don't really care for tech culture and disruption and all that. I feel like the criticisms are a little bit knee-jerky.
What I see here is a system that increases people's mobility, reduces automobile use, lowers pollution, and provides a source of casual income to a bunch of people. Those are pretty big public goods! I think that having to occasionally nudge a scooter out of the way is a pretty small price to pay. I like this idea a lot better than rideshares or drop bikes, and certainly a lot better than mandatory car ownership for anyone who ever wants to leave their house. The negative externalities here seem remarkably small.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:51 PM on May 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
Bird paid the Atlantic to run the FPP article, right?
Here's my summary: Charging Bird brand scooters is fun and profitable and easy, and everyone's doing it, and it's really cool! And fun! And profitable! But wait, there's a dark side to it - people love charging Bird brand scooters so much that sometimes they fight over who gets to do it!
posted by aubilenon at 4:59 PM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Here's my summary: Charging Bird brand scooters is fun and profitable and easy, and everyone's doing it, and it's really cool! And fun! And profitable! But wait, there's a dark side to it - people love charging Bird brand scooters so much that sometimes they fight over who gets to do it!
posted by aubilenon at 4:59 PM on May 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Another thing I like about this vs. drop bikes is that it's more accessible. You have to be a lot more able-bodied to ride a bike than an electric scooter, plus riding a bike is a skill a lot of people don't have. I once dated a woman who'd never learned to ride a bike despite living in a nice flat city where biking was super useful, because as a kid her parents thought it was too dangerous to ride in the street and there was no safe place near her house for her to practice. Scooters you can just hop onto and go—they're much more intuitive.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:00 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:00 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I feel like a solution to a user leaving an electric scooter in the middle of the sidewalk is just to push it out of the way. I mean, they're just scooters; it's not like they're dragon's teeth. You can just move them.
It's worse when they're parked across a bike path. But even when I'm on foot, have my hands free, and am not in a hurry, I am not interested in volunteering to help a for-profit business* take over public spaces.
* I'm sure they're not actually making a profit. I'm also not interested in helping to prop up some stupid venture capital shell game, or whatever the hell is actually going on here.
posted by aubilenon at 5:28 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's worse when they're parked across a bike path. But even when I'm on foot, have my hands free, and am not in a hurry, I am not interested in volunteering to help a for-profit business* take over public spaces.
* I'm sure they're not actually making a profit. I'm also not interested in helping to prop up some stupid venture capital shell game, or whatever the hell is actually going on here.
posted by aubilenon at 5:28 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
They're not locked, they're not licensed with the city, seems like they're abandoned property to me.
Why? Does an unlocked bicycle seem like abandoned property? An unlocked car? An unlocked house?
The main issue, to me, is people riding them on sidewalks. Yeah, they're not "supposed" to (although it might actually be legal? I believe in California riding bicycles is legal on the sidewalks unless the city/country says otherwise).
It varies by city. I suspect it's illegal most places. However in Los Angeles, it's actually legal to ride bicycle on the sidewalk. Basically as long as you're not an asshole about it. Not legal in Santa Monica, though it's not very common for it to be enforced. Because cops usually have better things to do than harass bicyclists. In my experience, almost nobody actually walking really cares if there's a bicycle being ridden on the sidewalk, as long as it's not causing problems. Riding on a sidewalk is not commonly viewed as a problem in and of itself.
Oh my lord, Bird et al don't give a shit about this. They don't care about if local government is unresponsive to the needs of its citizens. They care about showing their investors that they can turn a profit as fast as possible, because that $100 million dollars in VC funding has to have something to show.
Is this supposed to be a bad thing? If local government isn't worth a crap, and some VC tech bro comes along with a useful gadget to address an unmet need, why should I care if it's a VC tech bro that's behind it?
If these things piss enough people off there will be no way they can make a profit because they have got to be a couple hundred bucks each even in bulk, and there's any number of ways to irreparably destroy one in seconds, for free.
It's just such a waste of what might be a great idea to deploy it in a way that causes the absolute most amount of irritation to the most number of other people.
And what's to stop the competing companies from driving around and swiping competitor's scooters and destroying them.
I swear the only money to be made in this shit show is by the Chinese manufacturers turning them out.
This applies to bicycles and just about anything, really. There's nothing stopping you from vandalizing or stealing anything, except fear of punishment and maybe your sense of morals. Of course people can justify anything if they feel they are in the right.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:42 PM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
Why? Does an unlocked bicycle seem like abandoned property? An unlocked car? An unlocked house?
The main issue, to me, is people riding them on sidewalks. Yeah, they're not "supposed" to (although it might actually be legal? I believe in California riding bicycles is legal on the sidewalks unless the city/country says otherwise).
It varies by city. I suspect it's illegal most places. However in Los Angeles, it's actually legal to ride bicycle on the sidewalk. Basically as long as you're not an asshole about it. Not legal in Santa Monica, though it's not very common for it to be enforced. Because cops usually have better things to do than harass bicyclists. In my experience, almost nobody actually walking really cares if there's a bicycle being ridden on the sidewalk, as long as it's not causing problems. Riding on a sidewalk is not commonly viewed as a problem in and of itself.
Oh my lord, Bird et al don't give a shit about this. They don't care about if local government is unresponsive to the needs of its citizens. They care about showing their investors that they can turn a profit as fast as possible, because that $100 million dollars in VC funding has to have something to show.
Is this supposed to be a bad thing? If local government isn't worth a crap, and some VC tech bro comes along with a useful gadget to address an unmet need, why should I care if it's a VC tech bro that's behind it?
If these things piss enough people off there will be no way they can make a profit because they have got to be a couple hundred bucks each even in bulk, and there's any number of ways to irreparably destroy one in seconds, for free.
It's just such a waste of what might be a great idea to deploy it in a way that causes the absolute most amount of irritation to the most number of other people.
And what's to stop the competing companies from driving around and swiping competitor's scooters and destroying them.
I swear the only money to be made in this shit show is by the Chinese manufacturers turning them out.
This applies to bicycles and just about anything, really. There's nothing stopping you from vandalizing or stealing anything, except fear of punishment and maybe your sense of morals. Of course people can justify anything if they feel they are in the right.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:42 PM on May 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
> VC tech bro comes along with a useful gadget to address an unmet need
They don't care about the unmet need! They care about their unmet profit goals. We are not the customer here.
posted by rtha at 8:03 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
They don't care about the unmet need! They care about their unmet profit goals. We are not the customer here.
posted by rtha at 8:03 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Why? Does an unlocked bicycle seem like abandoned property? An unlocked car? An unlocked house?
I can think of a few relevant differences between one of these scooters left blocking a sidewalk or just laying on the ground in a park and a legally parked unlocked car showing current tags and decals.
posted by skewed at 8:24 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I can think of a few relevant differences between one of these scooters left blocking a sidewalk or just laying on the ground in a park and a legally parked unlocked car showing current tags and decals.
posted by skewed at 8:24 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
One of the dockless bike companies is talking about coming to Milwaukee, and the newspaper reported that their value-add over the existing non-profit docking bike share is that it costs less to run.
Probably because they don't invest in building bike racks and just litter bikes on the roads, but I guess that doesn't make for a nice PR piece.
On the other hand I'm seriously impressed with how quickly the non-profit is building out "stations". They're running sponsorship deals with larger local businesses and are doing an awesome job of blanketing downtown as well as the close suburbs.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 9:13 PM on May 21, 2018
Probably because they don't invest in building bike racks and just litter bikes on the roads, but I guess that doesn't make for a nice PR piece.
On the other hand I'm seriously impressed with how quickly the non-profit is building out "stations". They're running sponsorship deals with larger local businesses and are doing an awesome job of blanketing downtown as well as the close suburbs.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 9:13 PM on May 21, 2018
why should I care if it's a VC tech bro that's behind it?
Every three months for the last several years, there's been a story on a new way in which Uber is awful, sometimes to their customers, sometimes to theiremployees independent contractors, sometimes to their actual employees, and sometimes to the communities that they "serve". They dodge laws to protect customers and workers, they sneak around App Store rules to protect users, they sponsor police militarization conferences. They are not here to help me or you.
Bird is run by a former Uber executive. The investors who found that appealing are going to put pressure on him to do as much of the same bullshit as possible.
posted by aubilenon at 10:19 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
Every three months for the last several years, there's been a story on a new way in which Uber is awful, sometimes to their customers, sometimes to their
Bird is run by a former Uber executive. The investors who found that appealing are going to put pressure on him to do as much of the same bullshit as possible.
posted by aubilenon at 10:19 PM on May 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
I bought a similar scooter several years ago when I was commuting about 40 miles a day. I was trying to make public transportation work but on the home end the station was a mile away and on the work end it was five miles.
When I first bought it I rode it around on a tennis court for awhile and it was awesome. Both times that I actually tried to use it for the commute I fell off and got bruised and scraped. Also destroyed a work laptop.
But driving around at night in a scavenger hunt type thing to find scoots sounds like a lot of fun. The extra money would be nice too.
posted by bendy at 10:46 PM on May 21, 2018
When I first bought it I rode it around on a tennis court for awhile and it was awesome. Both times that I actually tried to use it for the commute I fell off and got bruised and scraped. Also destroyed a work laptop.
But driving around at night in a scavenger hunt type thing to find scoots sounds like a lot of fun. The extra money would be nice too.
posted by bendy at 10:46 PM on May 21, 2018
Even when there are countless studies and proven benefits saying that cities need to clear the cars out during rush hour so transit can run efficiently, start charging market rates for parking, and get more people biking, still it doesn't happen.
I am starting to think one problem is that American cities are just much more unequal and public services are much more meager and poorly-run than in say, Scandinavia. It makes people much more skittish about this kind of change. The neighborhood where I work, despite having a hospital and two stadiums, somehow still has neither parking nor reliable rapid transit, for instance (the first intentionally, the second because of lol idk, it's supposed to by now but delays, mismanagement, corruption, etc). People have no reason to trust that they will be able to switch to transit if congestion pricing makes their car commute intractable, so they rightly assume it means they will just be displaced entirely.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:32 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I am starting to think one problem is that American cities are just much more unequal and public services are much more meager and poorly-run than in say, Scandinavia. It makes people much more skittish about this kind of change. The neighborhood where I work, despite having a hospital and two stadiums, somehow still has neither parking nor reliable rapid transit, for instance (the first intentionally, the second because of lol idk, it's supposed to by now but delays, mismanagement, corruption, etc). People have no reason to trust that they will be able to switch to transit if congestion pricing makes their car commute intractable, so they rightly assume it means they will just be displaced entirely.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:32 PM on May 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
2N2222: Does an unlocked bicycle seem like abandoned property?
It sure does. And over here, it'll be treated as such. A bike that's not locked will not stay in the same spot for long.
Back to the topic at hand: we don't have these here in the Netherlands (yet). I suspect there's not as much of a need, because we have good bike infrastructure and decent public transportation. I saw similar scooters being ridden in Bordeaux lately but I think that was recreational use by private owners.
I can see a user case for one of these in my family. But they're not street legal here.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:34 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
It sure does. And over here, it'll be treated as such. A bike that's not locked will not stay in the same spot for long.
Back to the topic at hand: we don't have these here in the Netherlands (yet). I suspect there's not as much of a need, because we have good bike infrastructure and decent public transportation. I saw similar scooters being ridden in Bordeaux lately but I think that was recreational use by private owners.
I can see a user case for one of these in my family. But they're not street legal here.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:34 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
They don't care about the unmet need! They care about their unmet profit goals.
This is literally every business under capitalism, though.
I am not interested in volunteering to help a for-profit business* take over public spaces.
That's one way of looking at it, I suppose.
Bird is run by a former Uber executive.
Now, that does not bode well.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:13 AM on May 22, 2018
This is literally every business under capitalism, though.
I am not interested in volunteering to help a for-profit business* take over public spaces.
That's one way of looking at it, I suppose.
Bird is run by a former Uber executive.
Now, that does not bode well.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:13 AM on May 22, 2018
> This is literally every business under capitalism, though.
Well yeah, exactly. I'm pushing back on this framing that they are doing us poor ignored citizens a great favor and we should therefore cut them some slack.
> Now, that does not bode well.
It does say a lot about the mindset and strategy of the company, don't it.
posted by rtha at 6:39 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Well yeah, exactly. I'm pushing back on this framing that they are doing us poor ignored citizens a great favor and we should therefore cut them some slack.
> Now, that does not bode well.
It does say a lot about the mindset and strategy of the company, don't it.
posted by rtha at 6:39 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
This article really reminded me of the trailer I saw for a 2012 short film (which at the time was satire) about most jobs being outsourced to China and what life is like for those in outside of China who are left doing shit freelancing/gig economy jobs that no Chinese person will do.
Ghosts With Shit Jobs trailer on youtube. The tag line is: "In the future Jobs Suck in A whole New Way'
For those interested more about the film can be found at
Jobs listed in the trailer are:
Human Spam - Person (Non celebrity) paid to insert advertising word salad into everyday speech
Silk Gatherers - Mutant Spider / Arachnid web collectors
Baby Makers - Robot Baby disassembly, assembly maintenance, and Black market resale
Digital janitor - Person who uses 'censorship paint' to paint over advertising and billboards so that they don't show up on film or in photographs for copyright reasons.
I mean fighting someone over the ability to pick up an electric scooter and charge it so someone else can then rent/dump it seems dystopian to me
posted by Faintdreams at 7:29 AM on May 22, 2018
Ghosts With Shit Jobs trailer on youtube. The tag line is: "In the future Jobs Suck in A whole New Way'
For those interested more about the film can be found at
Jobs listed in the trailer are:
Human Spam - Person (Non celebrity) paid to insert advertising word salad into everyday speech
Silk Gatherers - Mutant Spider / Arachnid web collectors
Baby Makers - Robot Baby disassembly, assembly maintenance, and Black market resale
Digital janitor - Person who uses 'censorship paint' to paint over advertising and billboards so that they don't show up on film or in photographs for copyright reasons.
I mean fighting someone over the ability to pick up an electric scooter and charge it so someone else can then rent/dump it seems dystopian to me
posted by Faintdreams at 7:29 AM on May 22, 2018
Bikes, not scooters, but this Illinois prank is delightful.
We don't require car rental companies to pay to have car parking installed everywhere, and there's no reason it should be so different for bike or scooter rental.
posted by asperity at 7:51 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
We don't require car rental companies to pay to have car parking installed everywhere, and there's no reason it should be so different for bike or scooter rental.
posted by asperity at 7:51 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
The difference though is that you have to park a car in an existing spot, and there are laws governing how and where you use street parking. You can't just leave your car in any unoccupied region of road or sidewalk. (I mean in SF you kind of can, as long as your four ways are on, but that's a separate problem.)
posted by en forme de poire at 8:00 AM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by en forme de poire at 8:00 AM on May 22, 2018 [5 favorites]
This article had a few good ideas for how cities can productively regulate programs like this (it's about bikes but seems to apply just as well to scooters): Streetsblog: 5 ground rules for dockless bike share
posted by en forme de poire at 8:04 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by en forme de poire at 8:04 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Toronto is rife with e-bikes; they seem really practical around here. People have been parking them fairly thoughtfully either as motorcycles (backed in to on-street parking) or very carefully wedged next to something on a sidewalk so they don't block pedestrians. (Not everyone is as thoughtful, but I haven't had to change my path to navigate around a rudely parked one myself.)
I have seen maybe a half-dozen people in Toronto with electric skateboards, generally being pretty chill, riding in bike lanes. (I see a lot more regular skate boards.)
I have seen precisely zero electric kick boards like these -- not rentals, not privately owned, none. Curious.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:33 AM on May 22, 2018
I have seen maybe a half-dozen people in Toronto with electric skateboards, generally being pretty chill, riding in bike lanes. (I see a lot more regular skate boards.)
I have seen precisely zero electric kick boards like these -- not rentals, not privately owned, none. Curious.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:33 AM on May 22, 2018
The life of a bird hunter is always intense!
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:56 PM on May 22, 2018
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:56 PM on May 22, 2018
My Short, Miserable Career Charging Electric Scooters
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:22 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:22 PM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
The difference though is that you have to park a car in an existing spot, and there are laws governing how and where you use street parking.
This is true, and I have philosophical objections with any for-profit business using public space like this, but there are a lot of places to put scooters where they aren't particularly in the way if you aren't a gigantic asshole (which, of course, many people are) who dumps them in the middle of the sidewalk. Next to bike racks, newspaper racks, fire hydrants, advertising kiosks, trees, the advertising signs businesses illegally drop in front of their shops, street lights, traffic lights, utility boxes, etc...
posted by zachlipton at 3:02 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
This is true, and I have philosophical objections with any for-profit business using public space like this, but there are a lot of places to put scooters where they aren't particularly in the way if you aren't a gigantic asshole (which, of course, many people are) who dumps them in the middle of the sidewalk. Next to bike racks, newspaper racks, fire hydrants, advertising kiosks, trees, the advertising signs businesses illegally drop in front of their shops, street lights, traffic lights, utility boxes, etc...
posted by zachlipton at 3:02 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
From that Slate link: At the end of it all I made about $125 over two weeks, for roughly 10–15 hours of nighttime effort and a few more minutes each day dropping them off in the early morning.
So you make a whole $8 - $12.50 an hour to recharge their stupid scooters? Wonderful.
posted by octothorpe at 3:06 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
So you make a whole $8 - $12.50 an hour to recharge their stupid scooters? Wonderful.
posted by octothorpe at 3:06 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
My Short, Miserable Career Charging Electric Scooters
The massive amount of gamesmanship described here should have been anticipated, and clearly makes the whole charging process completely worthless if you don't cheat, but it also ruins the service for anyone interested in actually using it. If the app shows scooters as available, but they're really hidden inside garages or trucks by chargers who are hoarding them, you can easily spend more time wandering around trying to find a scooter than it would have taken to just walk/ride public transit/bike/bikeshare/Lyft/get a piggyback ride to wherever you were going in the first place.
I've played this game, trying out the scooters, of "oh there's one nearby; I'll take that," grabbing a helmet, heading out, and discovering there's no such scooter. And then you have to figure out another way to go. Do that more than once, and you're not all that interested in trying again.
Their gig economy charging scheme ruins the whole point of their business, which is that scooters should be available for people to ride, and I can hardly blame people who are doing whatever they can to make a quick buck by hoarding them until the company pays more.
make a whole $8 - $12.50 an hour to recharge their stupid scooters?
Less $.10-.15 or so per scooter for the electricity, gas and mileage (if you use a car), and the inconvenience and risk of having to run around a city by yourself holding a phone after 9 and before 7 searching for scooters other people have already hoarded.
posted by zachlipton at 3:47 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
The massive amount of gamesmanship described here should have been anticipated, and clearly makes the whole charging process completely worthless if you don't cheat, but it also ruins the service for anyone interested in actually using it. If the app shows scooters as available, but they're really hidden inside garages or trucks by chargers who are hoarding them, you can easily spend more time wandering around trying to find a scooter than it would have taken to just walk/ride public transit/bike/bikeshare/Lyft/get a piggyback ride to wherever you were going in the first place.
I've played this game, trying out the scooters, of "oh there's one nearby; I'll take that," grabbing a helmet, heading out, and discovering there's no such scooter. And then you have to figure out another way to go. Do that more than once, and you're not all that interested in trying again.
Their gig economy charging scheme ruins the whole point of their business, which is that scooters should be available for people to ride, and I can hardly blame people who are doing whatever they can to make a quick buck by hoarding them until the company pays more.
make a whole $8 - $12.50 an hour to recharge their stupid scooters?
Less $.10-.15 or so per scooter for the electricity, gas and mileage (if you use a car), and the inconvenience and risk of having to run around a city by yourself holding a phone after 9 and before 7 searching for scooters other people have already hoarded.
posted by zachlipton at 3:47 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Jesus. Instead, if they'd worked with the city, they could install charging corrals next to lamp posts and while they'd probably spend a few thousand per, there wouldn't be any of this nonsense. Charge people an extra couple of dollars for leaving a scooter unplugged, and give someone a couple dollars for plugging it back in.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:57 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:57 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
That would have involved planning and licenses and permits and meetings with the city and the possibility that they would have to pay money or even be told no. Instead their business plan seems to be "let's just do it and be legends."
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:28 PM on May 22, 2018
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:28 PM on May 22, 2018
The increasing scourge of poorly-parked bikeshare bikes or scootershare scooters (the latter's not a thing in my area yet) just doesn't seem to be all that much worse than the existing scourge of poorly-parked automobiles, which our eyes mostly gloss over because they look entirely normal, even when they're blocking crosswalks, parked across sidewalks, parked in strange-but-visible places with for-sale signs in the windows, abandoned on the sides of streets or highways, et endless cetera. Some of those are even rentals, though the larger rental companies' fleets blend in pretty well.
These bikes tend to end up on their sides at a greater rate than cars do, because bikes can be blown over by wind more easily than cars are. Kickstands can be dislodged when the ground's too soft or unstable. Those explanations are a lot more sensible than the assumption that people riding bikes are more likely to be malicious or thoughtless assholes than people driving cars. The death tolls from traffic violence and air pollution show how silly that idea is. (Which is not to say that plenty of people parking bikes poorly aren't assholes, but: simplest explanation.)
Better bike parking is simple and cheap to make more widely available. Solid stuff with at least two good points of contact so it's harder for bikes to fall over, not shitty wheelbender racks. Appropriately spaced from each other and from walls. Not placed somewhere that bikes would block a sidewalk. It's not difficult.
I roll my eyes hard every time I hear someone in city planning talk about the importance of making sure bicycle parking is aesthetically pleasing. Like, y'all don't even begin to think about that consideration when it comes to parking cars. You have Serious Business official guidelines and you insist that they're followed to the inch. Even if your city requires bicycle parking, you don't put the same thought into reviewing it that you do car parking. Phooey to that.
posted by asperity at 4:19 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
These bikes tend to end up on their sides at a greater rate than cars do, because bikes can be blown over by wind more easily than cars are. Kickstands can be dislodged when the ground's too soft or unstable. Those explanations are a lot more sensible than the assumption that people riding bikes are more likely to be malicious or thoughtless assholes than people driving cars. The death tolls from traffic violence and air pollution show how silly that idea is. (Which is not to say that plenty of people parking bikes poorly aren't assholes, but: simplest explanation.)
Better bike parking is simple and cheap to make more widely available. Solid stuff with at least two good points of contact so it's harder for bikes to fall over, not shitty wheelbender racks. Appropriately spaced from each other and from walls. Not placed somewhere that bikes would block a sidewalk. It's not difficult.
I roll my eyes hard every time I hear someone in city planning talk about the importance of making sure bicycle parking is aesthetically pleasing. Like, y'all don't even begin to think about that consideration when it comes to parking cars. You have Serious Business official guidelines and you insist that they're followed to the inch. Even if your city requires bicycle parking, you don't put the same thought into reviewing it that you do car parking. Phooey to that.
posted by asperity at 4:19 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
People are, in fact, fined for improper parking on a regular basis.
posted by aubilenon at 4:43 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by aubilenon at 4:43 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]
And yet, not often enough to stop them from rendering bike lanes useless. Or from coming up with ridiculous schemes to make parking anywhere A-OK.
I'm not suggesting there are never any consequences anywhere for parking cars improperly. But it's very difficult to do anything about it even in densely-populated urban areas where there's a dedicated right-of-way enforcement staff patrolling, never mind everywhere else where it's pretty much "report abandoned car with windshield missing, wait a week for someone to show up to put a warning sticker on it, wait another week or three for the car to be removed while squirrels are nesting in the soggy upholstery," at best.
Or at least that's my experience. It takes days to get law enforcement to do anything about cars blocking crosswalks, so it's only worth trying to do something about it when the same car's been there for days. Block one for just one day? No problem, no ticket, no fine.
posted by asperity at 9:17 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm not suggesting there are never any consequences anywhere for parking cars improperly. But it's very difficult to do anything about it even in densely-populated urban areas where there's a dedicated right-of-way enforcement staff patrolling, never mind everywhere else where it's pretty much "report abandoned car with windshield missing, wait a week for someone to show up to put a warning sticker on it, wait another week or three for the car to be removed while squirrels are nesting in the soggy upholstery," at best.
Or at least that's my experience. It takes days to get law enforcement to do anything about cars blocking crosswalks, so it's only worth trying to do something about it when the same car's been there for days. Block one for just one day? No problem, no ticket, no fine.
posted by asperity at 9:17 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
We've reached a new level of stupidity. The City Attorney announced in the same press conference that the city is making permit applications available today for scooter operators, and that all scooters have to be off the streets June 4th, with a pretty clear threat that those not complying may not get a permit to operate legally.
It would be nice if this could be handled in an attempt to solve a problem rather than to demonstrate the City Attorney's ability to make idiotic threats by demanding that people stop doing what's about to be legal, but here we are.
posted by zachlipton at 1:36 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
It would be nice if this could be handled in an attempt to solve a problem rather than to demonstrate the City Attorney's ability to make idiotic threats by demanding that people stop doing what's about to be legal, but here we are.
posted by zachlipton at 1:36 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Apparently Denver's getting electric scooter-share today via Lime. "Lime will round up the scooters each night and redeploy them each morning."
I'll have to give them a try sometime when I don't have my bike with me. I took my first-ever (dock-to-dock) bikeshare trip this week, and it was convenient and good and got me where I needed to be in just enough time! Though not having rear baskets as well as front is a hassle. It'd be nice if more of the various bikeshare bikes were set up to allow people to carry stuff easily.
posted by asperity at 10:28 AM on May 25, 2018
I'll have to give them a try sometime when I don't have my bike with me. I took my first-ever (dock-to-dock) bikeshare trip this week, and it was convenient and good and got me where I needed to be in just enough time! Though not having rear baskets as well as front is a hassle. It'd be nice if more of the various bikeshare bikes were set up to allow people to carry stuff easily.
posted by asperity at 10:28 AM on May 25, 2018
Pittsburgh's apparently getting a scooter share service next month but they're big Vespa type scooters not the little skateboard things called Scoobis.
posted by octothorpe at 2:45 PM on May 25, 2018
posted by octothorpe at 2:45 PM on May 25, 2018
Nice way to make the best of the situation.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:55 AM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by tonycpsu at 11:55 AM on May 31, 2018 [3 favorites]
Scooters Are Cool, But Not $1 Billion Cool
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:42 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:42 PM on June 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
Friend of mine just got a ticket for riding a bird without a helmet. Legend.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 1:33 AM on June 6, 2018
posted by inpHilltr8r at 1:33 AM on June 6, 2018
California's tough; even real motorcyclists don't need helmets around here.
posted by octothorpe at 5:03 AM on June 6, 2018
posted by octothorpe at 5:03 AM on June 6, 2018
Carolyn Said and Evan Sernoffsky in The San Francisco Chronicle: "Bye-bye, SF scooters as Bird, Lime and Spin go on hiatus" (June 4, 2018)
posted by Going To Maine at 5:12 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Going To Maine at 5:12 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by Naberius at 7:13 AM on May 21, 2018 [5 favorites]