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What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

haveago.city

31–40 of 198 posts

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#31
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 e…

And does California charge them for this?

That's an incredible story, especially from a Europe where immigration controls is on everyone's lips.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#32
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…

It is not an absurd priority if you are disabled. These scooters in the middle of side walks can literally mean injury to the blind, and a big pain for those in wheel chairs. Think of that the next time you simply 'step over' a poorly-parked scooter.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#33
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…

> You're not allowed to park your car in any random place you like You can probably get away with parking illegally more often than you imagine. (Note that I'm not saying that you should, or excusing bad behavior from dockless bike users.) Take an example from the article: cars illegally parked in the bike lane. In my experience* most drivers who park in the bike lane do so out of convenience, not a lack of options.…

It is not illegal to park a car in the bike lane in California. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/hdbk/traffic_l...

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#34

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…

I’m all for it if they stay off the sidewalk.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#35

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…

I’m all for it if they stay off the sidewalk.

That's already likely illegal. At least riding them on the sidewalk usually is, sometimes parking is allowed (or just ignored).

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#36

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…

> With some random bike or scooter, not so easy, if there is not some kind of enforced numbering system.

Even if there is, someone else could have moved the scooter after it was properly parked.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

And does California charge them for this? That's an incredible story, especially from a Europe where immigration controls is on everyone's lips.

We don't, and legally we can't. Once they accept the ticket to SF and choose to make their home on the sidewalk, they become our problem, legally. And SF (even now) is so much nicer than Texas that few of the homeless are willing to go back.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#38

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…

you don’t have to remove the car. But to change things, the first step would be to reframe the car centered infra as legacy, an historic situation that you want to work on.

I interpret GP’s “entitlement” bit as the thinking that cars should be at the center of cities. Good or bad, I think the majority of people are still currently in that mentality.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

A better phrasing would be that in most places in the U.S. public transport simply does not exist. Not everyone lives in the heart of the city where it may be an option.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#40

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…

I’m all for it if they stay off the sidewalk.

Someone who is not comfortable/fit enough to bike on an American road should probably bike on a non-crowded sidewalk.

There are over 800 cyclist deaths, from being hit by cars, every year in the United States. How many pedestrians have been killed by a cyclist hitting them?

Forcing someone biking at 7 mph off the sidewalk and onto the street creates more danger then it protects us from.

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