If they just invent scooter classes it would fix that problem, that seems to be the plan for ebikes/little electric motorcycles.Quote:
Originally Posted by phog
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If they just invent scooter classes it would fix that problem, that seems to be the plan for ebikes/little electric motorcycles.Quote:
Originally Posted by phog
We don't really need multiple classes - just "meet these requirements and we'll treat your scooter like a bike"Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Why not? Why does a sense of equity for a scooter user outweigh public safety?Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Shoot, why not fine anyone who walks past a poorly-parked scooter? Advocates seem to think it reasonable to expect Good Samaritans to fix parking problems; why not monetize the fact that some of us are too lazy and selfish to stop and fix scooter problems others created?Quote:
Originally Posted by sjclaeys
I'm not there, someone moves a scooter I'm done with, I get a fine...how does that in any way increase public safety? Should we also prosecute people for manslaughter if someone else steals their car and hits someone?Quote:
Originally Posted by sjclaeys
You're right--I'm sure that'll be exactly as effective in the long run!Quote:
Originally Posted by dasgeh
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
It doesn't but at least it punishes the scooter users, who tend to be younger than the citizenry in general, are more often POC's, and when they are white appear to be those "hipsters" who are ruining the country.
More importantly, it would discourage scooter use, which would (according to the research Va Tech did in Arlington) increase the number of Uber/Lyft rides.Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Same team, people, same team.
Ummm, if you leave the keys in the car, yes you can be held liable if someone steals it and kills someone.Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
https://www.ravellaw.com/opinions/ae...b5a6a20c13013c
So when someone riding a bicycle like Leslie gets hurt because of a scooter left in a MUP, they should just be thankful that the person who left the scooter didn't ride Uber/Lyft? I don't want to be part of any team that will reject any suggestions to improve public safety because they can come up with unlikely factual scenarios and won't give consideration to anything that could impinge on scooter use. You guys sound a lot like the NRA.Quote:
Originally Posted by dasgeh
I am very glad that Leslie was not hit by a Uber/Lyft.Quote:
Originally Posted by sjclaeys
I'm all for efforts to increase public safety, if they, you know, increase public safety. Brainstorming ideas that could increase public safety is great, but if under examination, there's an idea that would lead to more car trips (i.e. decrease public safety), then we should call it out.
Other ideas that could address bad parking while not increasing car trips:
- require scooters to be reflective all over (not all black)
- require better kickstands
- establish more clear parking guidelines
- develop/require better systems to alert users when the scooters are going to run out of battery
- develop/require better systems to pick up scooters that have run out of battery
- develop/require better systems for "sweeping" the trails for scooters.
OK, so in the scenario that a cyclist hits a scooter left in a MUP and is seriously injured, your response is that you're glad they weren't hit by a Uber/Lyft?Quote:
Originally Posted by dasgeh
I think we should improve safety on the trails, so that does not happen. We need a way to gather scooters improperly left on the bridges, MVT, etc, whether private juicers or the companies doing it. They probably need trailers pulled by ebikes to collect them - if NPS can't see their way to legalizing even class 3 ebikes on the trails, they could grant a waiver to ones run by the scooter companies for scooter collection. They may need to do pick up on the bridges and trails cooperatively - IE not Spin collecting Spin scooters, Bird collecting Bird, etc, but they may all need to go in together. Another possibility (I am not a techie, just brainstorming) would be geofencing combined with battery charge data - so one could not take a scooter onto a bridge if one did not have the juice to get to the other side and beyond the trail.Quote:
Originally Posted by sjclaeys
If ebike changes can't work, maybe the scooter companies need to pay to have someone pull a trailer with a regular bike. That will be expensive, but if its needed for safety so be it. If the scooters are profitable enough to bear the cost, fine, if not the scooter companies will have to geofence them from the bridges and trails. If that means dockless scooters play a lesser role in our multimodal future than hoped, again, so be it.
But these are ideas to address the problem, not an attempt to either discourage scooter use in general, or to punish scooter riders.
I just saw the LYFT trike when I was out for a run today. Rider was so nice.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthemark
the scooter is not operable. at any rate, if someone is liable it's the scooter company, not the user.Quote:
Originally Posted by sjclaeys
For the record, I think scooters are asinine. I just also think that trying to fine users for where the scooters end up is also asinine. It's a problem created by the scooter companies, they're the ones who need to figure out how to deal with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by sjclaeys
Actually, both areQuote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Only one thing can fix the parking problems (inconsiderate renters, jerks who deliberately move scooters to worse locations, juicers who stage poorly, scooters being accidentally knocked into bad positions): REQUIRING THEY BE PARKED IN WELL-PLACED DOCKS.Quote:
Originally Posted by dasgeh
They're too easy to move, there's no reasonably clear and enforceable parking rules, there's no way to establish fault, and I suspect too often scooters are knocked over in blameless incidents.
Dock them or ditch them.
...and hope my friend is right who thinks the dockless scooter companies will disappear but we will see individuals buy their own scooters, which they will have every incentive to park nicely (indoors).
According to the information we were given at the BAC meeting, scooter rides in the US outnumbered docked bikeshare rides in 2018 even though they did not exist for the entire year, while docked bikeshare systems have been around for about 10 years. About 40 million rides each. I will not be surprised if we see 200 million scooter rides this year and a billion within 2-3 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
So as asinine as they may or may not be, they are here to stay in a big way.
The scooter companies are aware of these issues and are working hard to resolve them.
When those new-fangled, horseless carriages showed up, there were not instantly traffic signals and parking meters and toll booths or even traffic cops. Governments, and for that matter, society, are racing to catch up to something that didn't even exist 18 months ago. A little chaos is to be expected.
For the record, I have taken three scooter rides and have found them to be a useful mode for certain types of trips. I did not feel asinine using the scooter, although I may have looked it.
Most of the Old Town NIMBYs insisting scooters will cause the world to end were saying the same thing about docked CaBi bikes a couple of years ago. If nothing else scooters have gotten them to appreciate CaBi, at least a little. But as someone who is a CaBi member, it does have its limitations. Inconvenient stations, empty stations, dock blocked stations. And the arduous process of siting stations, made harder by some of the same NIMBYs who now decry scooters.
By the way when I have suggested that we need scooter parking corrals in Old Town, a common response is "don't take away car parking". Good luck getting those folks to approve of docking stations for scooters.
The biggest problem with scooters is the dockless part. That’s also the part costing the companies the most money. If they want to be profitable, they are going to have to figure that out and once they do, scooters will be less objectionable to the public. The current economic model is not sustainable even at scale.
https://ark-invest.com/research/electric-scooters
THIS I agree with completely. A large city or region like the Washington Metropolitan Area, if it takes finding transportation solutions seriously, should take the bull by the horns and provide incentives for companies to use a docked system. The whole thing could even be voluntary and would not prevent users from going dockless in an emergency. It could work like this: The municipality installs racks that have on them a series of low-profile, horizontal bars that are 12mm in diameter and 30 CM (12") wide; each bar has, at its center, four bands of contacts on them; two for data and two for delivering 42vdc, at 2 amps. Once the scoot "handshakes" with the dock, the dock delivers the juice. Engaging the docking bar simultaneously secures the scooter, and charges them as well. The scooter companies, eager to have their scooters secure and not have to pay contractors to charge the scooter daily, will attach a locking/latching clamp to their scoots that is compatible with the rack docking stations. The dock itself has no locks and therefore will not be part of the rental or unlocking process.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldtowner
The biggest obstacle to raking in revenue all day with multiple rentals is the cost of a new scooter relative to its service life, which would certainly be shorter on average when the scooters are left out in the wild ; the cost to charge the scooters daily likewise drains away precious rental revenue. I could foresee rental companies charging $5 to unlock from a docking station and 15 cents per minute.... but refunding the entire unlock fee if the scoot is docked at a docking station. That way if there is no dock to be found, a renter can still drop off a scoot anywhere, but has a financial incentive to find a dock. The rental company can use that $5 to pay the company affiliate to find, charge, and re-release an undocked scooter. Or, to hell with voluntary compliance- the municipality can throw its weight around and mandate that all rental scooters have clamp solenoids. Imagine if a loose dockless e-scooter cost little or nothing to unlock for rental, but the renter STILL got the $5 if he ends up docking it? Then ANYONE with the phone app who happens upon an undocked scoot can pick up $5 of easy money by simply docking the thing! Helpful sidewalk sweepers will suddenly materialize everywhere!
By the way, how do I "like" a post? I don't see an icon to do so.
1. semi dockless already exists, at least for bikes. Thats what they have in Albany ny. You pay a surcharge to park it away from a docking station.
2. That wont stop complaining in Old Town, where they will hate both the stations and any undocked scooters.
3. Its not only parking. They hate seeing scooters ridden. On sidewalks, but also on streets.
Aw man! And here I thought I had invented the thing! Well, there goes my fame and fortune as an inventor. Still, I think this is what needs to be done to solve the litter and unprofitable operation problem with e-scooters.
Like the 3 Jump bikes on the Case Bridge sidepath this morning?Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthemark
right up until VC money stops flowing in, then they're goneQuote:
Originally Posted by Steve O
These docks would not be trivial, because they need to be connected to electrical power (solar like CaBi is unlikely to provide enough to charge the scooters). And to make them really useful, there should probably be several on every block, literally thousands in the region.Quote:
Originally Posted by phog
ya know, a long time ago, I spoke to someone in VC. They gamble. Most don't pay off. A few do, often quite big. Given how big the payback is when they hit, if they didn't mostly miss, the thing wouldn't be in equilibrium.Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
I remember the Dot com boom. Lots of failures. Lots of bankruptcies. But also, I guess, google. and a few other big hits.
The notion that because VC is involved it automatically means a concept won't last strikes me as just as unrealistic as thinking every new concept getting VC money will succeed. In a lot of case many of the entrants will fail, but one or two WILL succeed, and make money out of their market dominance (I remember when there were so many search engines around, there was a market for meta search engines that combined results from different search engines - because like who had time to do a dozen searches on different engines that each had their own strengths?) Some concepts will go away entirely. Some will evolve.
Its dead certain that many of the escooter companies now present will go away. Its possible they all will. Its also quite possible that one or two will survive and scoop up the market. That the thing has grown so fast suggests to me that the possibility of the latter is not negligible. As a citizen and advocate, I think its at least likely enough to justify the cost of painting scooter markings in bike lanes, say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve O
https://www.citylab.com/transportati...t-spin/584332/
Every streetlight is connected to electrical power... I think the docks as I envision them could be made economically, since they would not possess any locking hardware other than the fixed docking rods, and no moving parts.
To charge a single scooter from 1/2 charge to full charge in about an hour under full direct sunlight takes about 8 square feet of solar panel.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthemark
These docks hold 24 scooters. How big are the solar panels I wonder? They were not shown in the photo.
That said, the very fact that a company has already sprung up to solve this problem, and almost as fast as this thread can discuss new problems, people are coming up with ideas to fix them, make this whole thing really exciting to watch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthemark
;)Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthemark
It is not required to have a scooter symbol for the scooters to be legal in a bike lane.
It is however useful to encourage a community of new users, who are not familiar with the rules of the road, to use bike lanes. The bike riders who will use general travel lanes in preference to a PBL are already familiar with the law. And encouraging them to avoid the bike lane is hardly as pressing an issue as encouraging scooter riders to avoid riding on sidewalks.
Also with respect to practicality, there is a lot more room on the pavement in a bike lane than there is on a small sign.
So there is no contradiction whatsoever in my points above. Thanks for playing though.
Forget the dot com boom, look all the way back to the railroad boom. Everybody lost money on that unless they got out early, were getting huge government subsidies, or were supplying goods or materials to the railroads (often via shady insider deals which transferred investor money to the people running the show). Did railroads survive? Sure--but the original investors didn't make anything, the end result looked very different from what they started with, and the amount of money wasted (much of it by the government) was staggering. Scooters are similar, except that the wasted money isn't coming from the government (yet, and hopefully ever). They may exist in 50 years, but there's no way they'll be using a business model where the customer pays basically nothing, they lie around all over the place, they get replaced every few weeks, and the investors make billions.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthemark
The basic problem is that the wealth distribution is so skewed that rich people are running out of things to do with their money--so when someone comes along with something like magical scooter companies they think, "why not?"
Streetlights aren't actually very cheap--something like $5-10k lifetime cost--and you amortize the cost of running the wires by having a crew run a whole bunch of them in a straight line, usually when building the street and it's relatively cheap. But, like everything else related to scooters, the money for this can presumably be pooped out by angel investors swooping overhead.Quote:
Originally Posted by phog
My expectation is that after a shakeout, the surviving companies will raise prices (which will also reduce total usage and the optimal fleet sizes, which will by itself resolve some of the complaints), that the vehicles will be redesigned to be more resilient, that there will be at least some docks (possibly with the semi dockless model discussed above), there will additionally be scooter/bike corrals (which local transport depts will like because they provide an excuse daylight intersections, otherwise hard to overcome the resistance to remove motor vehicle parking).Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
But then I thought Hillary would win, so don't go by my opinion.
I like the idea of scooters and the dockless model, but there being scattered about is a serious safety issue, particularly at night or in periods of low visibility.
My thought on regulating them is pretty simple:
1. Make it illegal to park them along any shared use path, bike lane, or cycle track except in designated parking areas.
2. If a scooter is illegally parked along said locations in #1, any person may remove the scooter after a period of one hour, take it to an impound lot, and collect a $50 reward. Scooter companies will pay a fine of no less than $100 for any scooter they want removed from impound.
3. Any accident involving a cyclist, runner, or pedestrian and an illegally parked scooter will be considered 100% the fault of the scooter company regardless of other extenuating circumstances.
So what would stop me from taking any scooter at all, claiming it was improperly parked, and taking it to the impound lot for my 50 bucks? 6 or 8 a day and I'm makin' a 6-figure income.Quote:
Originally Posted by zsionakides
Since the scooter companies have location data on all their scooters, it would be pretty easy to demonstrate you are committing fraud and have you criminally charged. It wouldn't be much difference than a tow truck driver picking up cars off the road that were legally parked and claiming they were illegally parked in a lot they were contracted to patrol. Both are fraud and can get you in a lot of legal trouble.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve O
So what would prevent me from taking a scooter that is legally parked in a designated parking area, moving it 10 feet away and claiming it was parked illegally? I don't think their location data is sophisticated enough to differentiate?Quote:
Originally Posted by zsionakides