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For example, Louisville has had them for a few months, off and on. Louisville banned them but 2 weeks ago allowed 100 scooters on a "test basis" for 30 days with all kinds of regulations. There have been all kinds of complaints and no one is wearing helmets or using bike lanes, mostly sidewalks.
I was in Cleveland today and they are getting them for the first time now. Raleigh and many more places got them too, but Bird has not updated their location maps....
Are these scooters good for many of the mid sized cities in which they operate which may have hot nodes of urban activity but they may be 3-5 miles apart in some cases?
What are everyone's thoughts? I am not interested in discussing bike share here, as almost every major city has that by now. Let's talk specifically about Bird. A few cities in which Lime operates they now have Lime-S scooters. Feel free to mention your city and those too. Now Uber and Lyft are launching their own companies....
I have been seeing them in Louisville's urban neighborhoods for a couple months. They are restricted to the urban core inside the inner beltway there by emergency ordinance
Go to the San Diego forum, countless posts on them. Search the San Diego Union Tribune as well, plenty of articles written on them too. They’re everywhere here, especially at the beach.
San Diego uniquely in the country had a simultaneous dropping of multiple both bike share and scooters companies in February and unlike just about every other major city even though it experienced all the same issues and problems has had a mostly lassez faire attitude towards them. Other than a couple of tiny cities cracking down and banning them things have now mostly settled down on their own, in a positive way.
We live in the core of the city in a hip, streetcar suburb neighborhood adjacent downtown that typifies the kind of area that would be the market for the scooters and it has embraced them. Every morning dozens and dozens of scooters are dropped off all over here as well as other core neighborhoods in addition to downtown where there are hundreds. The bike share bikes are still there as well but there are far fewer. We can look on the apps on our phones and have them ready to roll a three minute walk away from on our front door.
By the middle of the morning there will be mostly young folks starting to cruise all around the city on these scooters as if they have always been there, and yes with hardly anybody wearing a required by law helmet. There may be anecdotal stories of horrific accidents and conflicts going on because of irresponsible scooter riders but honestly things just seem to be going on just fine as a citizen who uses them and also has to deal with the irritating new riders and tourists who toll along the sidewalks.
As a couple of 57 y.o. guys we are not in the typical demographic of the scooter users but we use them frequently and love them. We used to take the bus but we now almost always take the scooters for trips in the city under five miles or so, and have a blast doing it. We love parking our cars for the weekend and never get in them. Walking, biking, scooters, transit or the occasional ride share is the only way we get around our very busy social/cultural schedule.
I think they are potentially transformative in many cities depending on the built environment, topography, weather and demographics of a city. For our city they are quickly becoming another part of the urban transportation matrix. We just had another electric scooter company drop last week here, Razor, so obviously the companies also feel there is something right about this city for these fun as hell, green, non-polluting little electric scooters- ridden by mostly chill folks and more than a few clueless idiots.
San Diego uniquely in the country had a simultaneous dropping of multiple both bike share and scooters companies in February and unlike just about every other major city even though it experienced all the same issues and problems has had a mostly lassez faire attitude towards them. Other than a couple of tiny cities cracking down and banning them things have now mostly settled down on their own, in a positive way.
We live in the core of the city in a hip, streetcar suburb neighborhood adjacent downtown that typifies the kind of area that would be the market for the scooters and it has embraced them. Every morning dozens and dozens of scooters are dropped off all over here as well as other core neighborhoods in addition to downtown where there are hundreds. The bike share bikes are still there as well but there are far fewer. We can look on the apps on our phones and have them ready to roll a three minute walk away from on our front door.
By the middle of the morning there will be mostly young folks starting to cruise all around the city on these scooters as if they have always been there, and yes with hardly anybody wearing a required by law helmet. There may be anecdotal stories of horrific accidents and conflicts going on because of irresponsible scooter riders but honestly things just seem to be going on just fine as a citizen who uses them and also has to deal with the irritating new riders and tourists who toll along the sidewalks.
As a couple of 57 y.o. guys we are not in the typical demographic of the scooter users but we use them frequently and love them. We used to take the bus but we now almost always take the scooters for trips in the city under five miles or so, and have a blast doing it. We love parking our cars for the weekend and never get in them. Walking, biking, scooters, transit or the occasional ride share is the only way we get around our very busy social/cultural schedule.
I think they are potentially transformative in many cities depending on the built environment, topography, weather and demographics of a city. For our city they are quickly becoming another part of the urban transportation matrix. We just had another electric scooter company drop last week here, Razor, so obviously the companies also feel there is something right about this city for these fun as hell, green, non-polluting little electric scooters- ridden by mostly chill folks and more than a few clueless idiots.
T Damon, I first saw the scooters in San Francisco late last year. I have been following them all over the country in my travels and every city paper is running the same story.
People generally love them in Louisville too, also in the same kind of streetcar suburb you live in.
Are there any major cities that DONT have something like this? Come to think of it, I didn't see any in NYC last year! With the pedestrian and traffic density, maybe it wouldn't work?
And here in Louisville, 100 is not nearly enough. We could probably handle 1000 scooters here but I guess the city wanted to limit them to control their release first.
T Damon, I first saw the scooters in San Francisco late last year. I have been following them all over the country in my travels and every city paper is running the same story.
People generally love them in Louisville too, also in the same kind of streetcar suburb you live in.
Are there any major cities that DONT have something like this? Come to think of it, I didn't see any in NYC last year! With the pedestrian and traffic density, maybe it wouldn't work?
And here in Louisville, 100 is not nearly enough. We could probably handle 1000 scooters here but I guess the city wanted to limit them to control their release first.
They’ve actually been booted out of San Francisco, Denver, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and several other cities, with new, limited presence warily allowed back in a few. I see the issues with bad riders not following the rules but it should be the riders that get the hammer, not the scooter companies. There is a place for these mostly innocuous, useful little transportation devices as part as the overall city scope of things I say.
Bird, lime, and I think a couple others are all over DC.
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