The Rise of the Electric Scooter • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#91

Post by jdavis703 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:51 PM UTC

eldenbishop wrote: post #79

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the deal with the bike afterwords. Go for brunch in the mission and your friends are going back to the outer sunset with a scooter just fold it up and put it in the car with a bike either hope it's there when you get back, bike all the way, or go home then head over alone.

This exactly: bikes require planning and strategy and are not good for improvisational day-to-day things like you described. Bikes make walking easier but all other forms of travel like bus, train or taxi/uber/cars more difficult or impossible.

> bikes require planning and strategy

What? I don't plan or strategize any more or less than someone getting in a car might think about the optimal rush hour route.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#92

Post by phil248 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:51 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #17

Slimbo wrote: post #4

Isn't the best solution for "last mile" for all of us is to walk it?

It's probably the best solution for you. Please let other people decide what's best for them.

That is not how cities work.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#93

Post by abakker » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

modo_ wrote: post #63

shafyy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been biking for 2 years in SF and disagree that it's impractical for short trips. Why do you think that?

I use a bike to get around SF the majority of the time as well. But lately I've been switching it up and using a skateboard for short trips. Riding the bike definitely isn't 'impractical', but the skateboard is so much less of a hassle. You don't have to bother carrying a lock (or walk to the corner to find the nearest pole to lock it to for that matter). And, don't tell my Mom, but not fiddling with a helmet and lig…

rejoinder to the helmet point: if the speed is the same, and the places traveled are the same, the need for the helmet is the same.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#94

Post by phil248 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #21

BurningFrog wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The great thing about the scooter is that it isn't mine, so I don't have to worry about it getting stolen. That's it. That's the killer feature.

And a rental bike does not have this feature?

Sort of, but most bike rental places will charge you a fairly hefty fee (some places I know charge around $200-$300).

With the scooters, you just have to find a different scooter and continue about your business.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#95

Post by jdavis703 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:53 PM UTC

modo_ wrote: post #63

shafyy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been biking for 2 years in SF and disagree that it's impractical for short trips. Why do you think that?

I use a bike to get around SF the majority of the time as well. But lately I've been switching it up and using a skateboard for short trips. Riding the bike definitely isn't 'impractical', but the skateboard is so much less of a hassle. You don't have to bother carrying a lock (or walk to the corner to find the nearest pole to lock it to for that matter). And, don't tell my Mom, but not fiddling with a helmet and lig…

I spent three years doing this in SF. You definitely want a backpack you can attach clip on lights (FWIW my setup was a Goruck bag with Blackburn lights). I've found drivers pay even less attention to skateboarders than bicyclists. The lights help a little.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#96

Post by trenning » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

I'd love to get an electric scooter for commuting but my commute is a little long (and very hilly in Seattle). I occasionally commute on my electric bike though and it's a blast. It's also the fastest mode of travel hands down in the city, second only to my regular motorcycle.

The biggest thing with these low end electric bikes/scooters is that they have a hard time with the hills and really slow down and burn through power on them. My bike will do ~45mph but there's hills on my commute where I top out at ~19mph (with a running start of ~30mph).

But if you're commute in <5mi I think the scooter might be the best because as other have noted it's the most convenient, being able to take it inside with you to stores or hop on the bus or toss it in a car are extremely valuable features to me. Theft is my biggest concern but again with a cheap scooter you aren't out too bad if it gets jacked.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#97

Post by com2kid » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

beatgammit wrote: post #78

TulliusCicero wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's become somewhat popular in the US, despite the US having no cities with good bike infrastructure. Convenience is a hell of a drug. The way I see it, this increased uptake could help drive greater investment in bike lanes and walkability. Politically, it's always easier to spend money on things people already do than on things they might do if you spent enough.

Ideally, we'd have carless urban centers, with only buses, light rail, and small vehicles (bikes and scooters) allowed in a certain radius. This would allow greater density in the downtown area, eliminate most pollution, and promote general health, yet for some reason, nobody seems to propose it. It could even be coupled with free mass transportation in that region, since costs for running such a service would likely…

Drop the speed limit down to 15 mph on all side streets, and some main streets. Leave a few arterial streets here and there.

Delivery trucks can still share the space, not huge semis but smaller ones are no problem, they are infrequent enough making deliveries to businesses that they shouldn't be a huge burden (see: How the rest of the world handles it).

Keep semis on the main streets of course.

For larger arterial streets, separate traffic by size. Honestly fences are cheap and used in other countries, I am not sure why American cities insist on just thin painted white lines. It is not like a fence takes up significantly more space. :/ (Maybe 2 inches extra width, if that?)

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#98

Post by blacksmith_tb » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #87

I am amused this is still a topic of discussion in America. Visit China sometime, electric motor scooters (larger than the kids versions we have here[1]) and motorbikes are everywhere, the large majority of small vehicles on the road there are now electric. It is super nice, the streets are far cleaner and quieter than just a few years ago. One huge benefit China has is an existing infrastructure for smaller vehicles…

I like watching the Cambrian Explosion of electric vehicles unfolding in China now, though it seems like a lot of them will not last. I think it would fair to say that bike lanes in the US are intended more for ease of litigation than safety (but that's true of a lot of US traffic infrastructure). The mix of traffic making things safer sounds a lot like a Woonerf[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#99

Post by pretendscholar » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

superturkey650 wrote: post #36

pretendscholar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Walking is slow. Walking a mile takes around 20 minutes. Maybe if you are crawling. Thats 3 miles an hour.

Have you ever measured how fast you walk? I walk a couple miles every morning at an okay pace with my dog and I still average about 17 minutes a mile.

If I'm walking alone I do about a 10 minute mile but I think I walk fairly fast.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#100

Post by rtomayko » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

eldenbishop wrote: post #38

I rode a non-electric kick scooter (Xootr) for three years working in downtown SF. It is by far the best form of transitional transport there is and superior to bikes for 99% of actual real world travel. It was easily 4-5 times faster than walking and more importantly suddenly made the entire city open due to how insanely efficient it was for "glueing" together various forms of public transport. I could hop from tran…

I’ve been thinking about bike vs scooter a lot lately too. Austin is overrun with scooters and I used them for a little while before finding the electric Uber Jump bikes. They seem superior to scooters in every way in Austin, which makes the 20:1 ratio of scooters to bikes a bit baffling.

But I can see your point in SF where I use to walk 5 blocks from my apartment to the muni train and then another five blocks from the train to the office. Scooters would have been ideal there.

The e-bikes have one massive advantage in Austin - you can take them on the Butler Trail that runs the width of the Austin along the river. You can get almost anywhere of interest very quickly on one of the jump bikes.

There’s also no useful bus or train transport in Austin (I thought SF was bad) so you’re not using the small transport to move small distances between larger transport as often.