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What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

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Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#171

Post by Lionsion »

CalRobert wrote: post #134
smallnamespace wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History is path-dependent. At some point in our nation's history (namely right after WW2), it was decided that cars, suburbia, and the Interstate highway system was the way forward, and not dense, closely packed cities + public transport + more railways. Note that we might not think about this now, but cities before WW2 were often disease-ridden, filthy places. The antibiotic revolution did not really come into full…

We agree on all those points. All I was saying is that people say "cities are spread out so transit won't work" when often the very _reason_ cities are spread out is that they lacked transit, so huge amounts of land were given over to auto infrastructure. It's worth considering that it's self-reinforcing and the causality isn't one-way. Look at a big box store, for instance - most of the land is parking, not the stor…

> All I was saying is that people say "cities are spread out so transit won't work" when often the very _reason_ cities are spread out is that they lacked transit, so huge amounts of land were given over to auto infrastructure. It's worth considering that it's self-reinforcing and the causality isn't one-way.

IIRC, that's ahistorical and getting the causation backwards. American cities used to be denser with more public transit (e.g. trollies) before cars became common. The reason cities are spread out is cars enabled the residents to spread out, since that's what they wanted to do. That established a new pattern of development that makes density more difficult.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#172

Post by CalRobert »

Lionsion wrote: post #171
CalRobert wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We agree on all those points. All I was saying is that people say "cities are spread out so transit won't work" when often the very _reason_ cities are spread out is that they lacked transit, so huge amounts of land were given over to auto infrastructure. It's worth considering that it's self-reinforcing and the causality isn't one-way. Look at a big box store, for instance - most of the land is parking, not the stor…

> All I was saying is that people say "cities are spread out so transit won't work" when often the very _reason_ cities are spread out is that they lacked transit, so huge amounts of land were given over to auto infrastructure. It's worth considering that it's self-reinforcing and the causality isn't one-way. IIRC, that's ahistorical and getting the causation backwards. American cities used to be denser with more pub…

True, but those people who moved out found that the externalities of their driving made driving itself less pleasant. It's great to live in the suburbs and drive in to the city when you're the only one doing it. When parking gets scarce or the roads are too narrow or congestion is bad, though, it gets annoying. For the US, the response was to mandate large amounts of parking and large roads that are built so they can move a certain number of cars a certain distance per hour. However, little thought was given to the fact that by doing so, you end up making the distances larger, because everything's farther apart, because it's surrounded by parking (among other reasons), wider streets, larger interchanges, etc.

Those things that make driving more pleasant also make walking less pleasant (walking next to Wilshire blvd in LA isn't exactly pleasant, for instance), so more people drive, so more people demand auto-oriented infrastructure, and so on.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#173

Post by JoeAltmaier »

CalRobert wrote: post #172
Lionsion wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All I was saying is that people say "cities are spread out so transit won't work" when often the very _reason_ cities are spread out is that they lacked transit, so huge amounts of land were given over to auto infrastructure. It's worth considering that it's self-reinforcing and the causality isn't one-way. IIRC, that's ahistorical and getting the causation backwards. American cities used to be denser with more pub…

True, but those people who moved out found that the externalities of their driving made driving itself less pleasant. It's great to live in the suburbs and drive in to the city when you're the only one doing it. When parking gets scarce or the roads are too narrow or congestion is bad, though, it gets annoying. For the US, the response was to mandate large amounts of parking and large roads that are built so they can…

Isn't LA famously 40% car-related (road, parking, service) by area? A prime example of the cost of externalities.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#174

Post by CalRobert »

Lionsion wrote: post #170
CalRobert wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"US cities also tend to be more spread out, which also reduces the appeal of public transit." Also could be US cities have no transit, requiring space-intensive auto infrastructure, so they're more spread out.

No, American cities are more spread out mainly because many Americans don't want to live in small apartments, and cars enabled that. Public transit is much less convenient and desirable when the 1) distance between adjacent stops is too large, 2) there are too many stops between different destinations, and/or 3) the stops at a particular location are too infrequent. I think all of those undesirable factors increase a…

We completely agree. Cars did enable that. They also caused people (especially wealthy people) to push for the very things that cause lower density, because driving through high density areas is a pain. I mean, it's not even that complicated. I used to go to my planning board meetings every month. I won't deny an agenda; I rode my Brompton to them. At those meetings people said (paraphrased but close) "We need to limit density because of traffic".

Unsurprisingly those neighborhoods have poor transit service. A shame, because in the example I think of there was once a rail line right through the neighborhood; it's what caused the neighborhood to get built in the first place.

If only _I_ decide to start taking a helicopter to work it's fantastic. If it starts to become popular to do so it will be a hassle, so people might push for rules about minimum helipad counts for buildings and building density because having thousands of people commuting by helicopter causes loads of congestion. As a result of both of those things buildings will need to be even farther apart. In fact, it might push them so far apart that it's impractical to get between them via foot, transit, or maybe even car. As a result, everyone uses a helicopter to get anywhere now, except for the poor chumps who can't afford one and are stuck driving.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#175

Post by swrobel »

randyrand wrote: post #121
swrobel wrote: post #59

"We don’t ask GM, Ford, or Toyota to solve car parking" A more apt comparison would be Avis, Hertz, etc but I think that would still be disingenuous. Car rental companies certainly penalize you for abandoning a rental car whereas these scooter/bike rental companies just let you dump them wherever.

The comparison to rentals is dumb imo. I own my own electric scooter. Many people do. This problem has to do with scooter ownership in general, regardless of the owner.

Really you just leave yours anywhere even though you own it?

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#176

Post by s17n »

woolvalley wrote: post #132
s17n wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried that with a scooter? It's not pleasant. For bikes, sure.

I do it with a boosted board, which is even worse. These e-scooters are not your typical kid scooters, they have pneumatic tires, and those tires are bigger than the 80-90mm skateboard tires that are available on electric skateboards. Here is one example: http://www.mi.com/us/mi-electric-scooter/

I've only tried the Birds but it was awful.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#177

Post by Lionsion »

CalRobert wrote: post #172
Lionsion wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All I was saying is that people say "cities are spread out so transit won't work" when often the very _reason_ cities are spread out is that they lacked transit, so huge amounts of land were given over to auto infrastructure. It's worth considering that it's self-reinforcing and the causality isn't one-way. IIRC, that's ahistorical and getting the causation backwards. American cities used to be denser with more pub…

True, but those people who moved out found that the externalities of their driving made driving itself less pleasant. It's great to live in the suburbs and drive in to the city when you're the only one doing it. When parking gets scarce or the roads are too narrow or congestion is bad, though, it gets annoying. For the US, the response was to mandate large amounts of parking and large roads that are built so they can…

I think you're focusing optimizing lifestyle to suit a desired transit style (public transit and walking), while the historical development mindset was to optimize transit style for a desired lifestyle (suburban living).

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#178

Post by Spivak »

pdonis wrote: post #76
subpixel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> In most place in the US public transport is woefully under-funded, under-utilized, and overly stigmatized You misspelled "in most places in the US public transport cannot meet people's needs". Yes, it can in inner cities, but most of the US is not inner cities.

You don't deserve the downvotes. It's not really surprising that the HN crowd doesn't understand how public transport completely fails in sparse metro-areas.

- Walking, biking, etc. are out since there's very little mixed-use land. Getting out of your residential area is already outside what one could reasonably be expected to bike. Your nearest grocery store is even further.

- Fixed path transport is always being proposed but getting the coverage and schedule that would make people give up their cars is always ludicrously cost prohibitive. There are too many areas to hit and few people in each area which makes each stop basically unprofitable.

- Buses face exactly the same problems. Within the densest parts of the city they work well but they don't work well in sparse residential areas because it's not profitable to run them at convenient schedules for small populations that trickle in and out.

And we're talking about millions of people. Rearrange everything isn't exactly a viable path forward.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#179

Post by Spivak »

fakename wrote: post #48
gamblor956 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

We have the same law in my city. The answer is that, and I'm honestly not trying to be snarky here, the bike lanes are very often deserted. The seem to be placed in areas and roads that are woefully inappropriate so that some city planner can go to a conference a talk about how green and progressive the city is.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#180

Post by TheCoelacanth »

bunderbunder wrote: post #162
darawk wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fedex deliveries blocking the road for a short time are generally considered preferable to removing a whack of on-street parking from every block in order to have an excess of loading zones, or not being able to have deliveries at all. You mean the way that the minor inconvenience of having a few scooters laying around is considered acceptable in return for having a cheap, efficient, green solution for last mile tr…

If it's just a few, that's not a big deal. But what a lot of people are envisioning isn't just a few scooters and bikes left around, it's the nuisance and eyesore of public areas being absolutely littered with these things that people are seeing in photos from cities that have had these services for a while. I don't think they're wrong. I also don't think it's a non-solvable problem. It seems that the worst of it is…

Extremely minor compared to the massive eyesore of parked cars littered all over the place.
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