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What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

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Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#21

Post by e_tm_ »

The management community at the apartment complex I live in (Wash. DC) has issued notices to all residents about parking bikes/scooters physically on their property. The main point being to avoid blocking ingress and egress points into the buildings themselves, but also gives the private property owner a way to force the problem onto the City.

This leads to large groups of bikes all colocated on the nearest sidewalk, safely in the public domain. From a practical standpoint this is an issue when the sidewalk gets fully blocked, although it is not an everyday situation.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#22

Post by chroma »

The status quo bias extends to more than just cars. I work in SF and some of my coworkers have complained about having to step over poorly-parked scooters. A couple of times, I've had to do the same.

When it comes to things I've had to avoid on SF sidewalks, the scooters are a non-problem. Far more often I am stepping over used needles, feces, and garbage. There are some alleys where I'm forced to walk in the road because the sidewalks are taken up with tents. Yet scooters are the thing we want to crack down on? What absurd priorities.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#23

Post by s0rce »

CydeWeys wrote: post #20
analog31 wrote: post #12

In my view, when bike parking becomes a problem in urban areas, cities do take steps towards regulating it. In my locale, there are numerous places where I've seen little signs forbidding bike parking, such as trees and hand railings. I don't know if these signs are backed up by real ordinances or what, but it does seem to point to a problem that's interesting enough for somebody to have addressed it. The nearby coll…

One obvious solution would be to add more bike parking. Bike parking is rare in most cities, which is why you end up with people locking their bikes to poles, fences, trees, benches, and anything else available. It's amazing how much urban space we're willing to dedicate to cars in the way of streets and parking (most of it free!), and yet bicycle parking is often a rarity.

A couple percent of car parking spots converted to bike racks/scooter parking would do a lot to mitigate these issues.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#24

Post by skookumchuck »

CydeWeys wrote: post #20
analog31 wrote: post #12

In my view, when bike parking becomes a problem in urban areas, cities do take steps towards regulating it. In my locale, there are numerous places where I've seen little signs forbidding bike parking, such as trees and hand railings. I don't know if these signs are backed up by real ordinances or what, but it does seem to point to a problem that's interesting enough for somebody to have addressed it. The nearby coll…

One obvious solution would be to add more bike parking. Bike parking is rare in most cities, which is why you end up with people locking their bikes to poles, fences, trees, benches, and anything else available. It's amazing how much urban space we're willing to dedicate to cars in the way of streets and parking (most of it free!), and yet bicycle parking is often a rarity.

When I was a kid, the schools had long rows of bike racks festooned with bikes. These days, a school has a single 5 foot rack with one forlorn bike in it and parents have to authorize their kids to bike to school.

When I drive by a school when they let out, the 20mph speed limit is a bit pointless because there are hardly any kids walking home (unlike the mobs when I was a kid). Their moms are all waiting in a long line with their SUVs idling (for some reason they never turn off the motor) while they text away.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#25

Post by kenhwang »

analog31 wrote: post #12

In my view, when bike parking becomes a problem in urban areas, cities do take steps towards regulating it. In my locale, there are numerous places where I've seen little signs forbidding bike parking, such as trees and hand railings. I don't know if these signs are backed up by real ordinances or what, but it does seem to point to a problem that's interesting enough for somebody to have addressed it. The nearby coll…

In my college bike town, when bikes or scooters are improperly parked, they broke the lock and impounded your bike and you had the option to pay a fee for it back, otherwise it'll be auctioned off after some time.

It's even easier to do that with sharing services because the company name is plastered all over the vehicle. Fine the company, they can eat the cost or find some way to keep track of how to pass it along to the user.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#26

Post by gamblor956 »

chroma wrote: post #22

The status quo bias extends to more than just cars. I work in SF and some of my coworkers have complained about having to step over poorly-parked scooters. A couple of times, I've had to do the same. When it comes to things I've had to avoid on SF sidewalks, the scooters are a non-problem. Far more often I am stepping over used needles, feces, and garbage. There are some alleys where I'm forced to walk in the road be…

Cracking down on the scooters is relatively easy: there are a handful of major actors, and dealing with them solves the problem.

Human waste, needles, garbage on the sidewalk is the result of hundreds of bad actors, which correspondingly takes significantly more resources to deal with. (And on that note, the state of Texas is the worst offender. Their official policy for dealing with their homeless during the Perry era, and still their unofficial policy, was to give their homeless showers and then a bus ticket to SF.)

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#27

Post by subpixel »

the-pigeon wrote: post #19
burlesona wrote: post #14

From the article: “If cities allow, and mandate that we be able to park cars everywhere, why shouldn’t bikes have the same convenience, especially considering they require 10 times less space than cars and offer the enormous efficiency, environmental, cost, and health benefits listed above?” Alternatively we could drop the entitlement to drive and park cars everywhere and the regulations forcing that choice on the co…

> entitlement to drive and park cars everywhere Most places in the US at least are not very livable without a car. You majorly hurt commerce and people's quality of life by removing vehicles without completely changing the layout of cities to make them work with other options. Not that we shouldn't pursue those sorts of changes but that thinking of it as "entitlement" is shallow and not constructive. The entire syste…

> Most places in the US at least are not very livable without a car.

Let me rephrase that for you: In most place in the US public transport is woefully under-funded, under-utilized, and overly stigmatized (as a thing only poor 'others' would use).

That is changing, slowly, as places that basically gave up on public transport are discovering that less and less people in their cities want to own a car.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#28

Post by jimjimjim »

basically, humans are selfish and unthinking, and won't notice anything unless it annoys them.

the market stabilizes at the benefit-annoyance intersection.

this means bikes, ride sharing, internet, tv, autonomous cars will all annoying be as hell but not quite annoying enough to quit doing it. this of course sucks and is why there should be regulations.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#29

Post by s0rce »

justjash wrote: post #9
Lionsion wrote: post #3

> Dockless bikes and scooters are not actually the problem. > For decades now, cars have gotten the royal treatment. Users were able to pick up their cars and drop them off anywhere in the city. It was simply expected that anywhere one goes in a city, one could be guaranteed a free, giant space to park one’s private 4000 pound box, no questions asked. Sure, in some dense areas, payment is now required. Yet private ve…

I think part of the problem is the lack of space to "park" a bike. You might be lucky to find one or maybe two bike racks per block compared to how many parking spaces? If I ride my bike to the bar to meet a couple friends I might have to lock my bike up a block or two away because that is the only rack around.

If that, I often find I have to lock my bike to a street sign or parking meter frequently.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#30

Post by BigFatGuy »

chroma wrote: post #22

The status quo bias extends to more than just cars. I work in SF and some of my coworkers have complained about having to step over poorly-parked scooters. A couple of times, I've had to do the same. When it comes to things I've had to avoid on SF sidewalks, the scooters are a non-problem. Far more often I am stepping over used needles, feces, and garbage. There are some alleys where I'm forced to walk in the road be…

I want to “crack down” on both.
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