It sort of looks like litter when I see all the bikes and scooters just left on sidewalks all over town.
Does it not qualify as litter?
I'm curious if anyone has an answer to this.
Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime
101–110 of 184 posts
Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime
#102This partnership could also allow Uber driver partners to basically have another source of income - rebalancing the scooter/bike network and helping with charging (ex. someone drives for Uber Eats, drops off a scooter at pickup restaurant to charge). Current Lime freelance chargers are making ~$1400 earnings per month[1] so this could start being substantial and help the growth for both companies [1] https://www.axio…
I worked as a charger - made $11k in a month. Only had a month until SF shut them down. I imagine payouts will get compressed as the market matures. Earnings are also highly dependent upon the scooter density of the area you service and the amount of charger competition in that area.
Interested to know how you managed that; a specific technique or someone helping you or some such?
Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime
#103I was thinking about the debate on scooters and it made me realize something:
Bike lanes are a disaster, probably one of the biggest mistakes in road design and planning.
The basic idea was sound, but it was done the wrong way. Everywhere you see a bike lane, that should've been the concrete sidewalk extended into that area with a painted stripe separating pedestrians and bicycles. Go to a beach and you can see the correct implementation. Our sidewalks are simply not wide enough.
What we have now is a cheap and bad solution. Nobody on bikes, scooter, etc. wants to be just a thin painted stripe away from cars that can kill them. But they are forbidden from sidewalks because they are too narrow.
The right way to add bike lanes would've been to extend the sidewalks into the road (where the current bike lanes are) by pouring concrete there. Full protection from cars, wide enough for pedestrians and bicycles, scooters, etc.
It's not too late to fix this, the bike lanes are there. Cities just need to spend the money to expand the sidewalks there. If they do this, there's potential for a true revolution in non-car mobility in the US.
Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars are at least parked in designated spots/areas. Dockless bikes and scooters don't have a designated space to park in; they have to be left on the sidewalk, and they can be dropped anywhere.
This is such a boondoggle. I rarely see any birds, lime bikes, orange bikes, ofos, etc. parked in places other than off to the side of the sidewalk, or in a bike rack. When I do, I move them. Most people, generally speaking, are good people. They put bikes where they're supposed to be, they put scooters where they're supposed to be etc. It isn't just enlightened tech commenters who know that a bike should go in a bik…
In Melbourne, our dockless bike provider, oBike, had to pull out because the council threatened them with fines for littering.
People just couldn't help throwing the bikes on train tracks, or in the river, or in trees, or basically anywhere that wasn't a bike rack. I don't think I ever saw an oBike in a bike rack.
Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime
#105It sort of looks like litter when I see all the bikes and scooters just left on sidewalks all over town.
Have you been to Southeast Asia? I think cars are littered all over the street.
Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime
#106I was thinking about the debate on scooters and it made me realize something: Bike lanes are a disaster, probably one of the biggest mistakes in road design and planning. The basic idea was sound, but it was done the wrong way. Everywhere you see a bike lane, that should've been the concrete sidewalk extended into that area with a painted stripe separating pedestrians and bicycles. Go to a beach and you can see the c…
There is some merit to that idea but I think you may be missing a few things. Often, parking is placed between a bike lane and the side walk. Bikes need to be able to cross lanes, often in cities, to make left turns. How can they do that when they're up on a curb to start, but additionally, with potential street parking in the way?
I think technically in many jurisdictions, bikes are to be treated as vehicles. Whether or not they're always treated that way is up for debate (and vice versa), but it may explain also partially why things were done that way.
Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime
#107I was thinking about the debate on scooters and it made me realize something: Bike lanes are a disaster, probably one of the biggest mistakes in road design and planning. The basic idea was sound, but it was done the wrong way. Everywhere you see a bike lane, that should've been the concrete sidewalk extended into that area with a painted stripe separating pedestrians and bicycles. Go to a beach and you can see the c…
This is something that is well-known in planning circles. In Seattle there have been a huge number of road diet (widening the sidewalk and redesigning the road for slower traffic speeds) + protected bike lanes coming online. Pedestrians benefit from this, too, from the increased safety and the other pleasant effects of traffic calming. Here's a map: http://seattlecitygis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/inde...
And there are a number of ongoing projects. See: https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs...
Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
That wouldn't be too difficult, and I think some cities have done that. The problem is that it's difficult to enforce and there isn't much incentive to try; are they going to give out tickets for poor scooter parking? Who would they ticket? Bird/Lime, the user, or the unknown person who moved it afterwards? I think docking stations are the better solution. Portland has docked shared bikes and they work well. It preve…
You're right that it would be hard to figure out the exact mechanics of the enforcement, but I think it can be done. > I think docking stations are the better solution. Portland has docked shared bikes and they work well. It prevents the littering problem almost entirely, and it could provide a way to keep these scooters charged. I strongly disagree. Docked bikes have been around for a while in most cities, and scoot…
> The only way to make the docked model work is to have many small docks - several on every block, which isn't going to happen.
That's probably the root of the disagreement: ubiquitous docks seem perfectly possible to me. I wouldn't advocate for several on every block but I think there's a feasible level where they remain pretty common. Here in Portland the bike stations are close enough that you don't often have to walk more than 2-3 blocks [1]. It would be even easier to create scooter stations, since they're less than half the size of a bike -- small enough to put a 10-12 scooter station on a sidewalk corner without much fuss. That compares pretty favorably with bike stations, which usually need to take up street space (which I'm fine with, but it can create political/logistical barriers).
You make a fair point about the scooters' pervasiveness being important for their popularity. Looking again at the system I know best, Portland has a hybrid system: in the highest traffic areas you can leave a bike pretty much anywhere at no cost, and you can leave one anywhere at all for a $2 fee. To prevent bikes from being strewn about and/or poorly distributed they offer a program where you earn account credit if you return a bike to a station [2].
I think that kind of thing would work pretty well with scooters, since they need to be charged every so often. Bird already has their Charger program [3] that pays you to pick up and charge their scooters. Users could instead earn account credit for returning scooters to stations, especially if they need charging and/or that station is low on scooters. That would allow people to leave them around but would keep them charged and "crowdsource" the effort to cut down on scooter clutter.
[1] https://www.biketownpdx.com/map
[2] https://biketownpdx.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/3600011157...
Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime
#109I was thinking about the debate on scooters and it made me realize something: Bike lanes are a disaster, probably one of the biggest mistakes in road design and planning. The basic idea was sound, but it was done the wrong way. Everywhere you see a bike lane, that should've been the concrete sidewalk extended into that area with a painted stripe separating pedestrians and bicycles. Go to a beach and you can see the c…
The only reason it works on a beach is that there aren't drive ways and intersecting streets. Are you proposing that we make the side walks level with the street? If so, then it's no different than what we have now, and if not, then you'll have ramps every block that go from street level and back up to sidewalk level?
Re: Uber Will Rent Scooters Through Its App in Partnership with Lime
#110I was thinking about the debate on scooters and it made me realize something: Bike lanes are a disaster, probably one of the biggest mistakes in road design and planning. The basic idea was sound, but it was done the wrong way. Everywhere you see a bike lane, that should've been the concrete sidewalk extended into that area with a painted stripe separating pedestrians and bicycles. Go to a beach and you can see the c…
the challenge is that this needs to be done consistently - in my town, they built a raised bike lane beside and level with the sidewalk but only for about 100m. it's red concrete and marked with signs and paint, but everywhere else in town bicycling on sidewalks is illegal. If you dare ride your bike on this "bike lane", you get anything from scowled at to sworn at by pedestrians who think you're biking on "their" sidewalk. and of course, the challenge with doing it consistently, even for a small town, is that it's expensive. retrofitting a bike lane on the asphalt only costs as much as some paint.
the cheaper, easier, and move obvious solution is to simply pour a curb separating the bike lane and the car lanes. you don't have to raise the whole bike lane up to sidwalk level, just 6" at the edge. and that's what many cities are doing.