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Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

france24.com

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Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#271

Post by ljf »

capableweb wrote: post #249
HPsquared wrote: post #245

It's a shame they are being banned in many places, because they are such a great idea. It's the equivalent to a taxi, but a small fraction of the price. It's such a great utility to be able to pick one up and go directly to your destination. All the advantages of having a bike, but without most of the downsides. People just needed to be somewhat polite and disciplined - too many ride fast on sidewalks, leave them in…

What exactly are the downsides of owning a bike that you don't have owning a e-scooter?

Firstly you need somewhere to keep the bike, inside is great but outside space can work, though you are at risk of having it stolen.

The main advantage is having it where you need it - maybe you got the metro or the bus to work and now you want to go on somewhere else. Your bike is at home. Then you want to head to a friends house, but there is nowhere safe to leave your bike but you'd be happy to leave the rental scooter outside, then two other friends want to join you on a trip to a pub, this time you have your bike but they don't, so you cycle alone and they get a cab.

I love cycling, but scooters (rental and private) def have some advantages

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#272

Post by Fradow »

Parisian here, for context I've been cycling to work for about 10 years now (before Paris transformed into a cycle-friendly city).

There are a lot of speculations and hypothesis from people who don't live in Paris and try to apply their experience in a different city to Paris, so allow me to offer the experience (obviously I'm biased) of someone living there.

The first big misconception is that this ban is only due to elderly going to vote. While the 90% percentage is indeed skewed, recent polls from before the vote showed that about 60% of the population approve of this ban. It's not as overwhelming, but still a majority.

People are fed up with rental e-scooters, but why? Not because they are littered everywhere. It's not longer the case. There are dedicated e-scooters parking spots, that are overall used properly (though they are often on the floor due to wind or being knocked down). The article talks about "tightening regulations", I'm pretty sure there are rules enforcing that.

The real reason is that anytime you see someone egregiously disregarding rules in a way that endanger others, it's more often than not a rental e-scooter, with rental e-bikes coming behind. They are perceived as dangerous, plain and simple. And it's not a lack of cycling infrastructure. While it's not up to Netherlands-level of bike-friendliness yet, it's quite good lately overall.

Now a last misconception is that this ban is bad because people will revert to cars. No they won't. In the first place, people riding rental e-scooters do not replace a car trip by a rental e-scooter trip, they don't even own one for the most part (or even have a driving license). What is replaced is a subway, bus, bike, or walking trip. Perhaps on some rare occasions a taxi/Uber. Apart from that last rare occasion, all other alternatives are MORE eco-friendly than the e-scooters.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#273

Post by czechdeveloper »

seren wrote: post #246

Just a precision, (private) e-scooters are still allowed. The vote was on renewing or not the contracts of free floating solutions like Tier, Lime, etc

This is quite important. While e-scooters are very eco-friendly, in hands of large rending companies they usually have extremely limited lifespan and are not fullfulling this place.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#276

Post by pawelk »

petre wrote: post #129
p0w3n3d wrote: post #126

Now Paris needs to ban electric vehicles. The same story. They started it, the will ban it. After a few building will be burnt beyond repair, of course

Why not just ban parking them in underground garages instead? Some LPG powered cars do have such a restriction in some EU states. Gas powered vehicles catch fire and burn as well. I've seen countless burning cars during the last heatwave.

The reason to ban LPG cars from underground garages is that propane is heavier than air, and in case of a leak the gas has nowhere to go (other than drainage, which sort of highlights the problem).

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#277

Post by gregoriol »

capableweb wrote: post #249
HPsquared wrote: post #245

It's a shame they are being banned in many places, because they are such a great idea. It's the equivalent to a taxi, but a small fraction of the price. It's such a great utility to be able to pick one up and go directly to your destination. All the advantages of having a bike, but without most of the downsides. People just needed to be somewhat polite and disciplined - too many ride fast on sidewalks, leave them in…

What exactly are the downsides of owning a bike that you don't have owning a e-scooter?

You can't take a bike easily into: a car, the subway, your flat, a shop, ...

It could also be the same reasoning as a car regarding the space: a bike for 1 person takes more space than an e-scooter for 1 person.

The real problem is not the device: it's the users. People using bikes also do stupid things, but not that often. Bikes can be very fast too, with electric assist they can go faster than cars in the city, but most "problems" seen today are with the scooters. This is a sad situation, but it's some users' fault, not the operators', not the city's, ...

One way to deal with this would be to have a license to drive a scooter or bike, so that kids (and adults) are taught some basic rules and have to follow them. But I guess this is politically hard to implement, it's easier to ban.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#278

Post by Symbiote »

pharmakom wrote: post #193
solatic wrote: post #132

Here in Tel Aviv, they'll never get rid of them for at least one reason: they're the only form of at-least-semi-public transportation available on the weekend (Shabbat) and Jewish holidays, when the law forbids buses and trains from running. Meet a date at 10 PM on Friday night? Scoot. Catch the Saturday 5 AM tour bus to a day-hike that's meeting on the other side of town? Scoot. They've also helped boost demand for…

Wait, so on weekends you can drive a car around but you cannot get the bus or a train? if so that's crazy.

The Outer Hebrides (islands) of Scotland had a similar situation.

The ferry used not to run on Sundays, and there were protests when Sunday service began. However, the airport operated flights on Sunday, so if you could afford it you could still e.g. visit family for the weekend and return to the mainland in time for work on Monday.

There are still no buses on Sunday, although there seem to be very few Monday-Saturday so that might not be entirely due to religious indoctrination.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#279

Post by Fricken »

epolanski wrote: post #223
arijun wrote: post #47

I would like to provide a contrasting viewpoint. I can’t speak to the situation in Paris, but in the city I live in, scooters are amazing. They reduce car usage which is better for both pedestrians and car users. They turn a 45 minute walk/30 minute bus ride/20 minute cab into a 10-15 minute trip, which opens up much more of the city (the city I live in was not built for the number of cars it has in it so getting any…

> They reduce car usage which is better for both pedestrians and car users. Most stats show that they don't reduce car usage, the people using them aren't people that give up cars, but people that give up on walking or taking public transport.

I've only seen one stat and it shows that, in Atlanta, following an E-efooter ban, average commute times increased 10%.

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-city-of-atlanta-banned-e-sc...

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#280

Post by golemiprague »

lozenge wrote: post #230
pharmakom wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, so on weekends you can drive a car around but you cannot get the bus or a train? if so that's crazy.

Yep, it's a significant contributor to car culture as once you have a car you start using it for trips that could be done using walking. And everybody needs a car to be mobile on Shabbat unless they can pay for taxis with a surcharge or are actually religious.

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