the one city i have seen e scooters work perfectly is Tallinn. after hating them in berlin, it took some getting used to, but it takes a certain balance of smooth and wide enough sidewalks/ streets, limit of pedestrian and car density, commonly accepted rules like parking spots and maybe some mentality. you see way more scooters than bicycles here and it seems to be the standard transportation mode after cars. even children mostly have little (non e) scooters instead of little bicycles.
Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters
361–370 of 571 posts
Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters
#362I wonder if there have been any social studies done regarding the apparent sense of entitlement that comes with operating any kind of vehicle. E-scooters are an absolute menace nearly everywhere I've seen them being used, with their operators weaving between pedestrians and cars alike, and littering the kerb when unused. But the same is often true for bicycles, especially the fast electric kind, and it's certainly tr…
It's also a problem of shared spaces. Pedestrians and Bikes are a poor mix. Bikes and Cars are a poor mix. but scooters and bikes seem to mix quite well. Malmo, Sweden; where I live, has excellent cycling infrastructure and the scooter "problem" is really miniscule. There are still issues, people parking in stupid ways or taking scooters into pedestrian areas, but overall there are significantly more dangerous driver…
> Malmo, Sweden; where I live, has excellent cycling infrastructure and the scooter "problem" is really miniscule.
It could be that what can turn e-scooters from an amenity to a menace is tourism.
Malmö would hardly be on the map as an international touristic destination. This means that e-scooter users are mostly locals. Which in turns means (a) that e-scooters would typically be a complementary mean of personal mobility, (b) there will be relatively few e-scooters.
Paris OTOH, is #1 city tourist destination in the world. It also happens to have a lot of car traffic. This (a) makes moving with an e-scooter convenient, (b) makes deploying a huge number of e-scooters for-rent a very lucrative business, (c) the number of e-scooters is inflated to cater to the tourist clientele. Add to this that many tourists may be unfamiliar with Parisian traffic and norms, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
The real problem with scooters is cuties unwilling to provide them with proper infrastructure. Bike lanes in most cities (out of the better European cycling cities), tend to be narrow and about 1/4 - 1/3 the size of a car lane. If a city were to dedicate a single car lane sized lane for “micromobility” and responded quickly to damage to this lane (which wouldn’t be as frequent for the obvious reason that damage is pr…
> If a city were to dedicate a single car lane sized lane for “micromobility” Most cities do not have a car lane sized lane to spare.
You'd be surprised!
Cars are an incredibly inefficient way of transportation. You can easily fit 10x as many bikes in the same space as a car lane. By building a viable biking / scooter infrastructure you reduce the amount of cars on the road, which more than makes up for the space required by this infrastructure.
Besides, car-heavy tend to be designed quite badly. Planners have a tendency to design for the worst-case scenario, so you end up with communities which legally require a 40-foot wide street in a quiet residential area. You simply don't need that much space!
Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters
#364Parisian 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 t…
> 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
This is a hard one to qualify completely. There is a lot of statistical evidence that infers that greater usage of e-Scooters and e-Bikes decreases car traffic. That may not be the case in Paris (and I can definitely see that being true) but it does go against everything we know statistically.
There are other points though, "last mile" is a difficult problem, it's not solved with bicycles (they are too onerous to take on public transport, and they are a huge target of theft), it's not solved with rental bicycles either (they are usually very few and far between).
Last-mile is most likely solved with personal e-scooters as they are much more acceptable to take on public transport and can be taken inside so they are a lot less steal-able. The problem with this is that personal e-scooters are significantly less regulated than the "all-seeing-eye" rental ones which impose restrictions on speed (20kph in Sweden, personal vehicles can be modified to go 30kph, legal maximum is 25kph and personal e-scooters all go this speed -- with no slow zones anywhere)
Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters
#365Earlier 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.
Well. You are legally allowed to drive a car around, but will still get stones thrown at your car if you do so in an ultra-orthodox neighborhood.
Even at random stranger cars (which I expect to be the case, you don't throw stones on cars of people you actually know, not under normal circumstances)? Ie I am a tourist and driving around and I like some older parts of town.
What is it with people generally that make them feel above others, forcing their viewpoints on everybody else as the only truth? People should generally travel far and exotic more, it changes folks for the better rather than their own micro echo chambers
Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If a city were to dedicate a single car lane sized lane for “micromobility” Most cities do not have a car lane sized lane to spare.
Then ban or severely limit cars there. You can turn a 2-way street into one way one and turn the other lane into bike/e-mobility one. If not that make it 30km/h zone, allow bikes and allow other mobility devices to take the middle of the lane. Banning cars from some streets is great solution as well.
Wonderfully put, but I take objection to saying "severly limit cars" what you are actually doing is increasing the throughput so that cars can actually get anywhere. Leaving it at status quo limits cars severly by making congestion worse.
Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters
#367It'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?
- slow
- requires more energy to travel longer distances.
- less theft prevention features.
Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters
#368The whole argument about "they clog the streets" and annoy me is absolutely contrary to the actual incentives to cheaper and more ecological transport. It's a very NIMBY type of thinking. Hey, Citizen, if you don't have the means to buy, store and charge your own and occasionally would need one to deal with the craziness and unreliability of public transport, we are going to make it harder on you. Many countries in E…
> The whole argument about "they clog the streets" and annoy me is absolutely contrary to the actual incentives to cheaper and more ecological transport. Bullshit. These e-scooter sharing services operate on cities already covered by all sorts of public transportation services, including municipal e-bike services. The key difference is that municipal services address and avoid the problem of abusive occupation of pub…
> Bullshit. These e-scooter sharing services operate on cities already covered by all sorts of public transportation services, including municipal e-bike services.
Bullshit. Specially at night.
> The key difference is that municipal services address and avoid the problem of abusive occupation of public space by employing networks of pickup/dropoff spots
Bingo! Thanks for making the point for me. You want to ban e-bikes/bikes that can be left freely like e scooters can. It's not the scooters but the parking that bothers you and though you pretend to be for bikes you aren't. NIMBY and disingenuous and I'm done with pretending you're anything but.
These stations won't feature in less affluent neighbourhoods, these stations won't be as many, these stations won't be as convenient. You're screwing the usefulness because YOU don't use it.
> Bullshit. These escooter sharing services operate in cities where public transportation is highly subsidized and monthly fees are mostly symbolic, with some cities being even totally free
Bullshit generalization. Paris isn't like that. London isn't like that. Madrid isn't like that. Dublin (which has no e scooter rental but does bike rental) isn't like that.
Every thing you say exposes you further.
> Also, a cursory search for escooters shows that there are scooters in the market for 120kg/13km autonomy for less than 300€, and they can be charged by simply plugging them onto any regular electrical socket.
Which a) implies you have a place to store it (privileged NIMBY) and b) implies it covers the same need of being somewhere and renting it on the spot (such as at night after an event, where you couldn't take a scooter or bike and leave it there).
> You have zero insight or basis on reality to support any of your personal assertions. You've managed to be entirely wrong in each and any assertion you made.
I've actually supported with specifics what I said while you have been a rude disingenuous actor who uses political generalizations.
You're a great example of what I talk about. HN always pretended to be polite and encourage discourse but when someone from reality came in an exposed a narrative, morally corrupt people like you would come down with the entitled arrogance and rudeness that can only be gained of not having to face reality.
Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also a problem of shared spaces. Pedestrians and Bikes are a poor mix. Bikes and Cars are a poor mix. but scooters and bikes seem to mix quite well. Malmo, Sweden; where I live, has excellent cycling infrastructure and the scooter "problem" is really miniscule. There are still issues, people parking in stupid ways or taking scooters into pedestrian areas, but overall there are significantly more dangerous driver…
> Malmo, Sweden; where I live, has excellent cycling infrastructure and the scooter "problem" is really miniscule. It could be that what can turn e-scooters from an amenity to a menace is tourism. Malmö would hardly be on the map as an international touristic destination. This means that e-scooter users are mostly locals. Which in turns means (a) that e-scooters would typically be a complementary mean of personal mob…
Honestly, I think you make a really good point.
The problem though, if taken to extremes would be to ban any form of car-rental (tourists are unfamiliar with the streets) and bike rental for similar reasons.
I would add though, that it's possible to gate these things and the scooter companies seem willing to do it; in the US for example I couldn't use an e-scooter because the app wouldn't accept my European driving license. (and you must have a driving license to use them in California)
Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters
#370I wonder if there have been any social studies done regarding the apparent sense of entitlement that comes with operating any kind of vehicle. E-scooters are an absolute menace nearly everywhere I've seen them being used, with their operators weaving between pedestrians and cars alike, and littering the kerb when unused. But the same is often true for bicycles, especially the fast electric kind, and it's certainly tr…
I should mention that it represent 80% of 7% of people that could vote. Basically people who don't like e scooters bothered to actually get out to a voting booth (no e-voting). Most inhabitants clearly didn't care enough.