Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

Post by notaki » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #102

notaki wrote: post #89

I'm all for having more scooters parked on sidewalks and less Uber/Lyft vehicles blocking bike Lanes and adding to downtown traffic. The scooters are much needed, obviously. But, as usual, the media and city are crying about it and all you read in the news is "scooter mayhem" like this is the scooter apocalypse. Find something else to write and worry about, Jesus.

Scooters going painfully slow in bike lanes will not be terribly different from cars stopping in them. Either way, you have to merge into traffic to pass.

Post by rdiddly » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 8:34 PM UTC

woolvalley wrote: post #45

rdiddly wrote: post #40

Sort of an empty comparison to the automobile. Similar in the fact that it's being thrown out into the world without a plan, and there's no space for them, and there's an outcry. Different because they're a lot less deadly. The proliferation of private automobiles is a net negative for the world, so if these scooters displace (i.e. take away space from) cars, they're good. If they displace, hassle or inconvenience pe…

Electric scooters go the same speed range of 10-25mph. All of these relatively new electric mini-vehicles go as fast or faster than a bicycle. For stability reasons the sweet spot is about 10-15mph, which is the speed of a typical bicycle rider. Bike riders should see them as allies in getting better bike infrastructure, because they are pretty much equivalent.

Post by wool_gather » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 12:30 AM UTC

shaki-dora wrote: post #136

ryanobjc wrote: post #5

I initially was bah humbugy about these scooters, but after reading an article that points out we have acres of space devoted to private automobiles, and that it really wouldn't be hard to accommodate these electric scooters, I changed my mind. They look fun, they seem more flexible than the hard-wired go-bike stations, and they don't seem super expensive. It's pretty obvious that our cities are broken, and SF needs…

It’s insane how we don’t even notice how much public space is devoted to cars: For a typical residential street, it’s 2/3: two lanes of traffic, two lanes for parking, vs two sidewalks. All are about the same width. That primacy of the car is what needs to change. Autonomous driving could go a long way, by allowing offside parking and increased utilization of shared cars. But even before, just inconveniencing drivers…

Post by closeparen » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 5:11 AM UTC

8note wrote: post #177

closeparen wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>stop if you need to If you're on a 45mph road and someone puts themselves in your path 10 feet ahead, no, we don't say that you should have actually been going 5mph just in case something like this was going to happen. You're required to yield at crosswalks, but there's an expectation that mutual acknowledgement between you and the pedestrian happens at a reasonable distance before the pedestrian enters the roadway.…

you can tell beforehand that its possible for somebody to suddenly jump out, so yes, you probably should be going 5mph

Post by justboxing » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 11:08 PM UTC

notatoad wrote: post #84

justboxing wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for the self righteousness of "only peds belong on sidewalks", I get tired of that Nothing self-righteous about that. Sidewalks are -- as the name itself suggests - meant for WALKING on the SIDE of the road, not for riding scooters and other vehicles which pose a danger to other people walking. Only exception being people on wheelchairs, but they aren't driving at break-neck speeds like an electric scooter rider…

The problem with this is that it's the same attitude as the car drivers have about "their" roads. If we listen to the drivers who say nobody but cars should ever be on the road, and the peds who say nobody but pedestrians should ever be on the sidewalk, what's left for cyclists, scooters, or any other form of transit?