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What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

haveago.city

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Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#41

Post by dcosson »

hapless wrote: post #2

If Hertz or Avis attempted to use public space to park their inventory, local residents and city officials would pitch a fit. Public parking exists for the benefit of the public at large, not as a cost-saving measure for rental firms. The same is true of bicycles. You can store your private bicycle almost anywhere you like in public. But city fathers will naturally take a dim view of a business using that public spac…

> Public parking exists for the benefit of the public at large

This is the point under contention. I strongy disagree, I would very happily give up public parking for other uses of that space - more bike/scooter lanes that can be further offset from fast-moving cars, dedicated space for Uber/Lyft dropoffs that don't block the roads, 5-minute loading/unloading parking for Fedex trucks and Postmates delivery people to idle for a few minutes.

Free (or heavily subsidized) parking for private cars is at the bottom of this list for me. It's also much more expensive to provide than these other things, because there's only one person benefitting from each parking space per few hours while all the others can benefit many more people. And even for the very drivers that street parking is intended to benefit - in lots of situations there are too few spaces on the street at all, so we're blocking this valuable space and most people won't find a spot anyway and will be forced to use a private garage.

And it's not that I never drive, I sometimes do, I still think it's a much better use of public space if I had to find a private lot or garage on the occasions when I drive so that these other things can be available to everyone.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#42

Post by pfranz »

rootedbox wrote: post #32
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…

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.

His argument is they're ignoring things like tents and feces. Maybe you can roll over trash and used needles in a wheelchair, but I wouldn't want to ride over or around any of those.

As an aside, I always found it odd when they mount street signs in the middle of sidewalks.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#43

Post by lifeisstillgood »

gamblor956 wrote: post #37
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Disputes between states are always political and only occasionally legal.

But yeah I can see it being difficult to prove, and harder to action. If one state wanted to sue the other, what is the process? Congress? Supreme court?

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#44

Post by Tyrannosaur »

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…

I would imagine this problem would be really easy to solve with bike sharing- to use it you have to register and pay a deposit. If a bike checked out with your name is never returned or is abandoned, they keep your deposit...

Edit- I suppose I have just invented docking.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#45

Post by floatrock »

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…

> 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.

In related news, SB-827, Weiner's bill to increase housing density near public transportation, died in committee today: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/17/major-california-hous...

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#46

Post by sankyo »

I am all for scooters that are not on the sidewalk. I am all for making it more difficult to own and maintain a car to help eliminate all the problems that they cause.

  We don’t ask GM, Ford, or Toyota to solve car parking, or even 
  pedestrian deaths, traffic, and other car issues. So why are we asking 
  LimeBike, Bird, or Spin to figure out bike/scooter storage?
Lime Bird and Spin own the scooters that are blocking the sidewalk. Not so for Toyota. Zipcars arranges parking for their cars when they are not being rented.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#47

Post by chroma »

rootedbox wrote: post #32
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…

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.

If the thing you care about is clear sidewalks, scooters are such a tiny problem that they're barely worth mentioning. I've had to step over parked scooters a handful of times. Every time, they were in an alley that no wheelchair or blind person could have navigated. The sidewalk was also populated with garbage cans, bicycle parts, and some random trash.

If a scooter is poorly parked in a high traffic area, people tend to move it out of the way. If it's in a low traffic area, then there's almost always other stuff in the way as well.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#48

Post by fakename »

gamblor956 wrote: post #33
btrettel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

I'm having a hard time imagining how you could park in a bike lane without blocking bicyclists. "You may park in a bicycle lane if your vehicle does not block a bicyclist and/or there is not a “No Parking” sign posted."

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#49

Post by UncleEntity »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #31
gamblor956 wrote: post #26

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.

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

There's no immigration controls between the states because we're all part of the same country. Don't think it'd even be legal to try it, ever.

The only real "immigration controls" we have are for produce at the California border to control the immigration of insects, people are free to go wherever they want. Oh, and those annoying Border Control checkpoints not at the actual border to impede the movement of foreign nationals.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#50

Post by kingnothing »

gamblor956 wrote: post #37
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And SF, like most cities, has this program which will send the homeless somewhere else.

http://hsh.sfgov.org/services/outreach-and-homelessness-prev...

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