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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

#241

Post by eridius »

Meekro wrote: post #107
eridius wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely untrue. Before the scooters littered the city, the companies talked to SFMTA, and SFMTA said they were drafting up regulations to govern the scooters prior to giving permission. The companies went ahead and littered the city with them anyway, without permission. Claiming that breaking the rules is what led to the SFMTA coming up with regulations to allow scooters is just plain wrong. They were working on t…

SFMTA was busy drafting regulations because Bird first broke the rules in Santa Monica and introduced the world to this kind of scooter rental concept. If they'd asked for permission before anyone had heard of the idea of a scooter company, SFMTA would have ignored the request.

Why would SFMTA have ignored the request?

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

#242

Post by darawk »

lovich wrote: post #194
Meekro wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'd started a scooter company before scooter companies were a thing, went to any city and asked for permission, they would have said "wtf? no." (assuming they answered my petition at all) and that would have been the end of it. The only reason we're here arguing about this is companies like Bird chose to ask for forgiveness rather than permission in the past.

That is disingenuous FUD. Cities are totally willing to work with companies if they provide a net benefit. Do you think a politician is going to deny access to a company if it costs them nothing and makes their constituents happy? What they say "wtf, no?" to is companies treating public good and spaces like sidewalks as something they can just offload all of their costs onto, without ever asking permission. Look at t…

You honestly believe that had Bird, initially an unheard of company, gone to say, the city of Los Angeles and said "We'd like to put scooters everywhere, is that cool?" They'd have said "sure"? I think that's incredibly naive.

The absolute best outcome for Bird would have been the city saying "you can put them in designated scooter areas, and they have to be docked in designated scooter areas". And that would have turned them into just another e-bike: utterly useless and used by no-one.

Now, there's absolutely a reasonable conversation to be had about corporate over-reach, responsibility, and externalities here. However, let's not pretend that this could realistically have been accomplished any other way.

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

#243

Post by mavhc »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #113
ckocagil wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think about it, Uber and Lyft literally built their businesses on breaking taxi laws of every city they operate in.

They did not break the taxi laws of every city they operated in. The taxi laws of many cities only required a "medallion" for taxi-style car services that allowed passengers to "hail" the car on the street. So-called "black" cars where passengers arranged transportation in advance were governed differently, and required no licensing or a different and more permissive kind of licensing. Black car services were already…

As soon as the mobile phone was invented this system was obviously stupid, who invented it in the first place?

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

#244

Post by mavhc »

s0rce wrote: post #99
jsemrau wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right. Dockless mobility uses public space for the benefit of a private corporation. I cycle to work and there is not a single day where I see an OfO bike or Grab bike parked in the most annoying places. Maybe "society" is not ready for dockless and we need to create norms and rules of behavior (i.e., enforce that with fines)

While I agree that this is an issues, in my opinion it is exceedingly minor, especially in comparison to the amount of cars illegally stopped or parked that I see while biking. In fact I had to merge into traffic a few times to go around tonight. A few bikes haphazardly placed is nothing more than a mild nuisance. Never mind the homeless camps and other litter everywhere in the bay area.

Cars, parked badly, you're on the right track..... homeless people = litter?, oh dear.

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

#245

Post by mavhc »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #44
ams6110 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, government services are worse. I can opt out of Comcast.

Sure if you want DSL. Choices in my market are: dialup, dsl, and Comcast.

Why is DSL so bad in USA? Everywhere else people seem fine with it

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

#246

Post by topmonk »

lovich wrote: post #194
Meekro wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'd started a scooter company before scooter companies were a thing, went to any city and asked for permission, they would have said "wtf? no." (assuming they answered my petition at all) and that would have been the end of it. The only reason we're here arguing about this is companies like Bird chose to ask for forgiveness rather than permission in the past.

That is disingenuous FUD. Cities are totally willing to work with companies if they provide a net benefit. Do you think a politician is going to deny access to a company if it costs them nothing and makes their constituents happy? What they say "wtf, no?" to is companies treating public good and spaces like sidewalks as something they can just offload all of their costs onto, without ever asking permission. Look at t…

> Do you think a politician is going to deny access to a company if it costs them nothing and makes their constituents happy?

If it's risky proposition, then yes, it's better to refuse.

If he accepts it and things go wrong, it'll be blamed on him, and he might get kicked out.

If he refuses, the worst that could happen is it could succeed somewhere else. In which case, he could then reconsider.

The only time where it makes sense to accept is when he's desperate and needs to shake things up, or there are enough kickbacks to make it worthwhile.

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

#247

Post by topmonk »

prepend wrote: post #223
LeoPanthera wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use of powered vehicles on sidewalks is illegal, as is blocking entrances with vehicles. The city accused Bird and Lime of doing both.

That is a dumb law that was made when motorcycles were the only vehicles competing inside walks. There is very little traffic on sidewalks and using it for pedestrians and scooters and bicycles is much better. Especially considering that cyclists can pause or go around pedestrians when necessary. Having an absolute law rather than an adaptive is not useful to the community.

Tell that to the wheelchair bound person who now have to deal with a scooter blocking their path every 20 yards.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] »

isoskeles wrote: post #211
LeoPanthera wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I don't know. It feels like littering. If the company suddenly closed - what now? Presumably they're unusable without the backend.

I think you do. I dislike the scooters for my own reasons, mainly the fact that people ride them on sidewalks. But this is not littering. You tell me if you see a scooter on the sidewalk if that strikes you as the same as people disposing of trash on the sidewalk: loose papers, cigarette butts, plastic bags, etc. I get what you're saying for the sake of argument, but littering is a disgusting act that makes most peop…

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by rorykoehler »

jsemrau wrote: post #66
LeoPanthera wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The companies in question already had a history of operating illegally in San Francisco. I don't think it's fair to dismiss that as "picking and choosing". Dumping those scooters over the city is effectively littering. Business should be able to operate freely, but they should not be able to break the law until someone catches them.

You are absolutely right. Dockless mobility uses public space for the benefit of a private corporation. I cycle to work and there is not a single day where I see an OfO bike or Grab bike parked in the most annoying places. Maybe "society" is not ready for dockless and we need to create norms and rules of behavior (i.e., enforce that with fines)

If the state have a problem with that maybe they should roll their own dockless solutions as part of their public transport strategy. Seriously, first they design cities so that 90% must drive to get anywhere and then they ban companies who bring solutions. Regressive and unacceptable.
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