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San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

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Re: San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

#181

Post by ebikelaw »

stephengillie wrote: post #105
NegativeLatency wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried one? They’re actually quite handy.

If the trip is less than 5 miles, it will be cheaper than $1 to drive my hybrid car there AND back. (Assuming $3.35/gallon at 40 MPG, which is quite realistic for a pair of 5-mile trips.) Why pay $1 for something that should cost $0.05, and would be difficult to integrate into my life? If I wanted to ride a bicycle, I'd spend the equivalent of 150 Lime rides at Target or Wally World and own my own bicycle. Why rent w…

Yes, assuming that the government massively subsidizes your driving by socializing the carbon externality and providing you with a free mandatory parking space at your origin and destination then it’s “cheaper” to drive.

Re: San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

#182

Post by gnicholas »

ohazi wrote: post #172
gnicholas wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One issue is that zoning rules don't always cover every potential problem. For example, there's been a huge controversy in Redwood City (and neighboring Atherton) regarding a coffee shop that is going in, which will employ lingerie-clad baristas (and apparently have mirrors on the ground, to make things even skeezier). [1] This coffee shop apparently meets all current zoning rules, though the employees may need to be…

So in situations like these, do you: a) Fix the zoning rules b) Make everybody ask the city council and all their neighbors for permission for every little thing, every time (a) is at least trying to make an even playing field for everyone. The rules are for everybody, and everybody has to follow them, regardless of political connections or money or lawyering, etc. At least in theory. With (b), you start by trying to…

Can zoning rules be changed retroactively? And even if this is allowed, can zoning rules be put in place with the goal of booting out a specific business? I think ex post facto prohibitions only apply to criminal laws, but in general I think we disfavor targeting individual businesses with legislation.

For background, I live in a neighborhood where the property sizes are much much smaller than the rest of the zoned area. So we have to get exceptions for many things because the rules were written for properties that are 10x to 50x the size. I wish that rules could be written to cover every possible eventuality, and I personally feel the pain because they cannot (I have to pay for every exception and variance in the approval process). So having seen how rules are blunt instruments, I have some sympathy for folks who are caught up in the process.

Re: San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

#183

Post by ebikelaw »

stephengillie wrote: post #135
pfisch wrote: post #6

Where is the startup that creates mods for these scooters so they operate for free? Or the startup that opens a chop shop for disassembling all these abandoned scooters and sells the parts? Seriously though these scooter permits sound corrupt, or have the potential for massive corruption.

I'm honestly surprised more people aren't taking the battery packs off bicycles. I've heard there's effectively a cell phone inside (microphone, speaker, accelerometers, GPS, cell connection, etc), and announces that it's calling the police, when moved unexpectedly. But cracking that case and pulling the batteries has to have some value. I'm honestly surprised we don't hear more news about that sort of criminal activ…

In Oakland (where Bird and Lime dumped all their junk after SF told them off) I have seen lots of stripped scooters. Also it’s trivial to hotwire a Bird, and everyone in Oakland seemingly knows how to do it.

Re: San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

#184

Post by kurthr »

ebikelaw wrote: post #178
kurthr wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the permit for leaving your product lying on the public sidewalk? There are several (for signs, seats, etc), and you're also supposed to pick up after your animals, not leave stuff laying about. Undocked transportation? I think that without some formal approval it would be within the cities right to confiscate items left on the public right-of-way and auction it off to the highest bidder. You can't even legall…

I guess you’re just overlooking cars? People leave their cars all over SF all day every day.

And they get towed all day every day... the fine for towing from a sidewalk is $400 last I checked, plus towing fees, plus nightly storage. Pretty soon you'll owe $10k on each scooter, and if you want to operate as a business within city limits you have to pay the fines.

Actually, if the city went after them as moving vehicles they would be collected by the towers in hours.

Re: San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

#185

Post by coddingtonbear »

ebikelaw wrote: post #178
kurthr wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the permit for leaving your product lying on the public sidewalk? There are several (for signs, seats, etc), and you're also supposed to pick up after your animals, not leave stuff laying about. Undocked transportation? I think that without some formal approval it would be within the cities right to confiscate items left on the public right-of-way and auction it off to the highest bidder. You can't even legall…

I guess you’re just overlooking cars? People leave their cars all over SF all day every day.

You have to realize that those parking spots are explicitly intended for car storage, no? The city even marks many of them --- even charges for their use by the hour.

If you were going to claim that our allocation of city resources to parking is excessive, I'd agree, but you can't reasonably claim that parking a car there isn't using the space for it's intended purpose.

Re: San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

#186

Post by maccam94 »

upzone wrote: post #110
emodendroket wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you owned a home and somebody wanted to put a nightclub on one side of you and an abattoir on the other. Do you think that might affect your quality of life at all? I mean hey, it's their property!

So actually, Japan does something like this. Residences can be built pretty much anywhere (except near super heavy industry), because their zoning is all about how much of a nuisance something is. They also don’t have strict usage restrictions like Euclidean zoning in the states. So for example, if something is zoned for medium commercial (making that up), you can build everything from commercial “down” (so to reside…

There was a fantastic post about how zoning in Japan works a couple months ago: http://devonzuegel.com/post/north-american-vs-japanese-zonin...

Re: San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

#187

Post by noobermin »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #180

I recently went south to LA and SD, and the scooters are awesome there. I saw them mostly near the beach, and 0 thrown in the middle of the pavement, none blocking exits or riding them obnoxiously. They even have scooter police that will give you a ticket if you go too fast (I am not saying that as necessarily a good thing, just that they seem to have their stuff together as cities). For the first time I actually mad…

They aren't going anywhere. People are just mad their favorite service didn't get chosen.

Re: San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

#188

Post by maccam94 »

upzone wrote: post #118
ohazi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with home renovation / remodeling / addition / construction permits. If your design meets code and zoning, it should automatically get approved. None of this nimby-neighbor-going-to-the-planning-meeting-and-getting-your-project-cancelled-because-your-chimney-will-cast-a-shadow-on-their-backyard bullshit.

That’s called by-right and lots of cities (maybe all? Not sure if it’s a local/state/federal thing) have that. That doesn’t stop NIMBYism (all you have to do is downzone), but for areas that are reasonably densely zoned, you don’t need any variances for projects that conform to zoning ordinances. The real issue with NIMBYs is how restrictive zoning is. Sure, you can build anything you want if it conforms, but good lu…

> The real issue with NIMBYs is how restrictive zoning is

Yeah, zoning in the US tends to be single use, which prevents most buildings from being built in most places. I recently read a fantastic blog post on how zoning works in Japan, where uses are instead ranked by how much of a "nuisance" they are, and zones have a maximum nuisance level. Anything at or below that level can be constructed in that zone.

http://devonzuegel.com/post/north-american-vs-japanese-zonin...

Re: San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

#189

Post by jonathankoren »

WisNorCan wrote: post #13
austenallred wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco just granted two companies a monopoly when previously there were multiple companies fighting for the same business. That’s the exact opposite of what you’re advocating.

VCs would not be giving billion $ valuations if they thought this will be a highly competitive market with many players. Everyone is betting on a winner takes most market.

That's certainly the conventional wisdom, but there's very little in the way of evidence that this is anything other than a cheap commodity.

Re: San Francisco Denies Scooter Permits for Bird, Lime, Uber and Lyft

#190

Post by JSDave »

tomglynch wrote: post #120
eridius wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a time-limited pilot program that also caps the number of scooters. It's far from a market monopoly. In addition, there's no network effect with scooters. Car sharing has the chicken-and-egg problem where you need enough drivers to meet demand, and you need enough passengers to give drivers a reason to drive for you. But scooters are cheap and easy to dump a whole bunch on a city, so there's no reason why a n…

I disagree. There is a network effect here, people will use the brand that already is installed on their phone PLUS the one that has the most scooters. This is what can occur here.

If someone wanted to sell a new app, they have to get people to recognize their brand and install their app no matter what.

Ride sharing companies then also have to reach a critical mass where drivers and riders can match in a reasonable time. I think overcoming that is the network effect.

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