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What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

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Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#51

Post by bsder »

btrettel wrote: post #15
Finnucane wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NYC, there were a few fights over docked bike rentals. For example: http://gothamist.com/2013/04/30/west_village_nimbys_file_fut... But even for regular bikes, it can be an issue when there is not enough parking. Here in Cambridge, over the last few years, the city has installed a fairly large number of parking rings for locking up bikes, and it still can't keep up. And don't even get me started on parking lots at…

The terrible quality bike racks are a major problem. Thanks for pointing this problem out. I'm particularly irritated by racks which are so close to buildings that they can only be used at half capacity. Whoever installed them obviously has no idea how they are used. In Austin, many bike racks also are coated in bird poop, though I'm not sure what can be done about this aside from regularly cleaning the racks. I neve…

> In Austin, many bike racks also are coated in bird poop, though I'm not sure what can be done about this aside from regularly cleaning the racks. I never ran into this problem anywhere else.

Presumably because the racks are underneath trees or shade (which the grackles also like) to avoid baking your bike in the sun.

Austin gets really hot in the summer and non-reflective surfaces can get hot enough to impart burns.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#52

Post by kingnothing »

vkou wrote: post #40
BigFatGuy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m all for it if they stay off the sidewalk.

Someone who is not comfortable/fit enough to bike on an American road should probably bike on a non-crowded sidewalk. There are over 800 cyclist deaths, from being hit by cars, every year in the United States. How many pedestrians have been killed by a cyclist hitting them? Forcing someone biking at 7 mph off the sidewalk and onto the street creates more danger then it protects us from.

And there are 1.3 million deaths per year in auto accidents. Cars are dangerous.

http://asirt.org/initiatives/informing-road-users/road-safet...

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#53

Post by phd514 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #26
chroma wrote: post #22

The status quo bias extends to more than just cars. I work in SF and some of my coworkers have complained about having to step over poorly-parked scooters. A couple of times, I've had to do the same. When it comes to things I've had to avoid on SF sidewalks, the scooters are a non-problem. Far more often I am stepping over used needles, feces, and garbage. There are some alleys where I'm forced to walk in the road be…

Cracking down on the scooters is relatively easy: there are a handful of major actors, and dealing with them solves the problem. Human waste, needles, garbage on the sidewalk is the result of hundreds of bad actors, which correspondingly takes significantly more resources to deal with. (And on that note, the state of Texas is the worst offender. Their official policy for dealing with their homeless during the Perry e…

That's a highly misleading statement. Homeless busing programs are common across the country and while not without their problems, they don't just send all homeless to a single location such as Texas to SF. Also, SF buses considerably more homeless out of its city every year than it receives via bus.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#54

Post by mjevans »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #31
gamblor956 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cracking down on the scooters is relatively easy: there are a handful of major actors, and dealing with them solves the problem. Human waste, needles, garbage on the sidewalk is the result of hundreds of bad actors, which correspondingly takes significantly more resources to deal with. (And on that note, the state of Texas is the worst offender. Their official policy for dealing with their homeless during the Perry e…

And does California charge them for this? That's an incredible story, especially from a Europe where immigration controls is on everyone's lips.

That's the root of the problem: the borders of movement are at the federal level* (well the 48 states), but the 'solutions' for non-integrated citizens are left to the states, counties, and local municipalities.

Informally, I recall learning that the 'solution' for inhuman insane asylums was to just release everyone and close them down. That's quite probably where a good portion of the 'homeless' problem comes from; there are of course also untreated veterans and just pure scam-artist pan-handlers.

The actual solution is also a difficult and politically impalpable issue:

    * national healthcare including drug addition treatment and mental health
    * an unending 'new deal'
    * + everyone trained to aptitude
    * + non-broken-window fallacy job assurance
    * adequate housing of actual quality near jobs
Also taxes / incentives (carrot+stick) at a federal level to pay for / encourage the correct behavior from all actors.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#55

Post by Lionsion »

subpixel wrote: post #27
the-pigeon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> entitlement to drive and park cars everywhere Most places in the US at least are not very livable without a car. You majorly hurt commerce and people's quality of life by removing vehicles without completely changing the layout of cities to make them work with other options. Not that we shouldn't pursue those sorts of changes but that thinking of it as "entitlement" is shallow and not constructive. The entire syste…

> Most places in the US at least are not very livable without a car. Let me rephrase that for you: In most place in the US public transport is woefully under-funded, under-utilized, and overly stigmatized (as a thing only poor 'others' would use). That is changing, slowly, as places that basically gave up on public transport are discovering that less and less people in their cities want to own a car.

US cities also tend to be more spread out, which also reduces the appeal of public transit. Contrast this to a Chinese city of the same size, which due to the fact that literally everyone lives in small apartments, is much more compact and easier to serve via public transport.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#56

Post by btrettel »

gamblor956 wrote: post #33
btrettel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're not allowed to park your car in any random place you like You can probably get away with parking illegally more often than you imagine. (Note that I'm not saying that you should, or excusing bad behavior from dockless bike users.) Take an example from the article: cars illegally parked in the bike lane. In my experience* most drivers who park in the bike lane do so out of convenience, not a lack of options.…

It is not illegal to park a car in the bike lane in California. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/hdbk/traffic_l...

My impression is that local laws, not state laws, make parking in the bike lane illegal in many cases.

In Austin, TX, parking in the bike lane is generally legal unless the signs specifically say it's not. The city has slowly been changing the signs, but there are many bike lanes where parking is perfectly legal.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#57

Post by zethraeus »

Lionsion wrote: post #3

> Dockless bikes and scooters are not actually the problem. > For decades now, cars have gotten the royal treatment. Users were able to pick up their cars and drop them off anywhere in the city. It was simply expected that anywhere one goes in a city, one could be guaranteed a free, giant space to park one’s private 4000 pound box, no questions asked. Sure, in some dense areas, payment is now required. Yet private ve…

Here's some uproar about docked bike rentals: https://sf.curbed.com/2017/7/18/15986716/ford-gobike-mission...

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#58

Post by nanomonkey »

vkou wrote: post #40
BigFatGuy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m all for it if they stay off the sidewalk.

Someone who is not comfortable/fit enough to bike on an American road should probably bike on a non-crowded sidewalk. There are over 800 cyclist deaths, from being hit by cars, every year in the United States. How many pedestrians have been killed by a cyclist hitting them? Forcing someone biking at 7 mph off the sidewalk and onto the street creates more danger then it protects us from.

There have been several studies showing that you're more likely to get hit by a car biking on the sidewalk then riding on the street. Drivers don't look for bicyclist riding on the sidewalk, you will get right swiped.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#59

Post by swrobel »

"We don’t ask GM, Ford, or Toyota to solve car parking"

A more apt comparison would be Avis, Hertz, etc but I think that would still be disingenuous. Car rental companies certainly penalize you for abandoning a rental car whereas these scooter/bike rental companies just let you dump them wherever.

Re: What Dockless Bikes and Scooters Are Exposing

#60

Post by terenig »

chroma wrote: post #47
rootedbox wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not an absurd priority if you are disabled. These scooters in the middle of side walks can literally mean injury to the blind, and a big pain for those in wheel chairs. Think of that the next time you simply 'step over' a poorly-parked scooter.

If the thing you care about is clear sidewalks, scooters are such a tiny problem that they're barely worth mentioning. I've had to step over parked scooters a handful of times. Every time, they were in an alley that no wheelchair or blind person could have navigated. The sidewalk was also populated with garbage cans, bicycle parts, and some random trash. If a scooter is poorly parked in a high traffic area, people te…

Yep. That's what the embedded Tweet was meant to illustrate.
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