Electric Scooters Sharing

[samagon]

On 1/8/2019 at 2:17 PM, Reefmonkey said:

 

The novelty of scooters means there is a distinct likelihood that they will have the staying power of Pokemon Go, or of Segways as the great mass mobility solution. But the problems they cause are here now. Your overall answer of "oh, things will work themselves out eventually" is not a legitimate public safety policy, and if (when) this fad fizzles out, there needs to be a discussion about how to manage the next "disruptive" business model that will appropriate public right-of-ways for the storage of their fleets/inventories.

 

Again, docked bikes are not scooters, they are not as likely to be used on sidewalks for the reasons I have already stated, and a bicycle requires a fairly long training period before someone learns to ride it proficiently, so no adult is going to just hop on a bike when they've never learned to ride before and immediately start riding it around a crowded city, and the fact that they have to be redocked to stop the meter from running up your credit card means they end up in designated locations and not littering sidewalks. You also overstate the numbers of docked bikes, or bikes from bike share programs in general, these programs have been hit or miss, and many large cities have been doing away with bike share programs that were never very successful (Seattle, Baltimore, eg).

 

The fact that scooters are too fast and dangerous for sidewalks but too slow and vulnerable for streets is not going to go away, and putting more and more of them out for use is only going to compound the problem.

 

Oh, and by the way, if you're going to be the kind of person who pedantically harps on single-letter typos to try to score cheap points in an internet discussion, better make sure you don't make any of your own from now on. The first letter of a sentence is capitalized, unless you're ee cummings, but you're not.

 

 

you know cars were a novelty once, as were escalators, as were lights, as were a lot of things that we all take for granted. I think you are confusing novelty and fad. a fad is something like Furbies. a novelty is something that is new and shiny, but that shininess wears off after you've done it once or twice, and they become more common. besides, if they are only a fad, and will be gone soon, then why are we even worrying about whether laws are made or not? if would be an irresponsible waste of taxpayer money to make a law for something that will be a flash in the pan.

 

there are two kinds of bike rentals. docked and dockless. Houston operates docked bikes. there are also dockless varieties of bikes. your assumption that people don't ride bikes on sidewalks is not accurate. other cities have dockless bikes, and they are left all over hells half acre as well. Houston seems to be expanding their network of bikeshare. 

 

using the wrong homonym is not a typo. your proper (or improper) use of vocabulary words only reflects upon you. I wasn't pedantically harping, just pointing out the correct word to use so you could potentially grow. your correct response would be to note the mistake and try not to make it again. getting defensive only shows that you aren't going to learn from your mistake and it's a waste on my part to have even pointed it out.

 

I was told once by someone that spent a lot of time studying the English language (and sorry, I respect them more than I do you, specifically regarding the English language) that being consistent is far more important that following formatting rules. if someone writes with the same formatting throughout their entire submission, while it may be jarring at first, it becomes expected. you go from having one or two mistakes, to that being a signature, so to speak.

 

vocabulary and grammar have little to do with e-scooters.

 

I do like some of the thoughts you posted about how to enforce rules around scooters. one glaring problem is if someone parks the scooter correctly, then some angry scooter hater gets all crazy and starts moving scooters that are stationed correctly into the wrong place, then the last rider will be punished unfairly. the answer there is one I think that is already in place by a lot of scooter shares. take a picture of the scooter inside the app after you park it to show you have placed it correctly. those users get a discount on their next ride. I think I remember that being how it went.

 

I also absolutely love the idea about having these things share bike lanes. we need more bike lanes though.

Edited January 14, 2019 by samagon

[Reefmonkey]

3 hours ago, samagon said:

 

you know cars were a novelty once, as were escalators, as were lights, as were a lot of things that we all take for granted. I think you are confusing novelty and fad. a fad is something like Furbies. a novelty is something that is new and shiny, but that shininess wears off after you've done it once or twice, and they become more common. besides, if they are only a fad, and will be gone soon, then why are we even worrying about whether laws are made or not? if would be an irresponsible waste of taxpayer money to make a law for something that will be a flash in the pan.

 

there are two kinds of bike rentals. docked and dockless. Houston operates docked bikes. there are also dockless varieties of bikes. your assumption that people don't ride bikes on sidewalks is not accurate. other cities have dockless bikes, and they are left all over hells half acre as well. Houston seems to be expanding their network of bikeshare. 

 

using the wrong homonym is not a typo. your proper (or improper) use of vocabulary words only reflects upon you. I wasn't pedantically harping, just pointing out the correct word to use so you could potentially grow. your correct response would be to note the mistake and try not to make it again. getting defensive only shows that you aren't going to learn from your mistake and it's a waste on my part to have even pointed it out.

 

I was told once by someone that spent a lot of time studying the English language (and sorry, I respect them more than I do you, specifically regarding the English language) that being consistent is far more important that following formatting rules. if someone writes with the same formatting throughout their entire submission, while it may be jarring at first, it becomes expected. you go from having one or two mistakes, to that being a signature, so to speak.

 

vocabulary and grammar have little to do with e-scooters.

 

I do like some of the thoughts you posted about how to enforce rules around scooters. one glaring problem is if someone parks the scooter correctly, then some angry scooter hater gets all crazy and starts moving scooters that are stationed correctly into the wrong place, then the last rider will be punished unfairly. the answer there is one I think that is already in place by a lot of scooter shares. take a picture of the scooter inside the app after you park it to show you have placed it correctly. those users get a discount on their next ride. I think I remember that being how it went.

 

I also absolutely love the idea about having these things share bike lanes. we need more bike lanes though. 

Yes, I do know that cars were once a novelty, and the introduction of the car had a lot of growing pains as people struggled to figure out how best to incorporate them into society through regulation, etc. Since then we’ve learned from experience that new technologies and paradigms that may impact public safety should be rolled out slowly, with proper oversight. Unfortunately, though, Silicon Valley is a perpetual adolescent, quite often seemingly ignorant of painful past experience, apparently thinking AirBnB was the first to ever think of unlicensed boarding houses, Uber to “invent” the unlicensed gypsy cab.

 

Back to when cars were first a novelty, it actually looked for a while that electric cars would win out over internal combustion. But they, along with the Stanley Steamer car, did not prevail. For electric cars, the infrastructure and technology had not kept pace with the promise, and the idea was effectively shelved for 100 years, and now its time has come. My read is that infrastructure and technology has not yet caught up to dockless e-scooter apps as a practical last-mile solution on a mass scale. In this case, it is not electrical infrastructure or battery technology, but city infrastructure. American cities have been built around the automobile for the past 90 years, making them an unfriendly place for smaller, slower, more vulnerable wheeled transportation, and the technology seems not yet ready for efficient distribution of scooters to where they are needed and to keep them from underfoot. Their moment has probably not yet come.  And you are right that it wouldn’t make sense to make new laws for something that may be a flash in the pan, but we don’t have to make new laws, do we? There are laws against blocking and littering public sidewalks. There are laws requiring businesses that operate in public areas to get permission from local authorities, which indicate that the authorities have the power to review and require certain conditions, even deny activities.

 

I’m a part of the riding community here in Houston, and I say you a vastly exaggerating the number of bicycles ridden on crowded sidewalks, and from my observations of e-scooters in San Francisco, they were being ridden on crowded sidewalks far, far more commonly than bikes.

 

While you continue to double-down on making yourself look like a prat with your self-important pedantry over “shear” vs “sheer,” I’m just going to put this out here.

 

 

https://www.sciencealert.com/people-who-pick-up-grammar-mistakes-jerks-scientists-find

“People Who Constantly Point Out Grammar Mistakes Are Pretty Much Jerks, Scientists Find”

As if we needed science to tell us that.

Edited January 15, 2019 by Reefmonkey

[samagon]

12 hours ago, Reefmonkey said:

Yes, I do know that cars were once a novelty, and the introduction of the car had a lot of growing pains as people struggled to figure out how best to incorporate them into society through regulation, etc. Since then we’ve learned from experience that new technologies and paradigms that may impact public safety should be rolled out slowly, with proper oversight. Unfortunately, though, Silicon Valley is a perpetual adolescent, quite often seemingly ignorant of painful past experience, apparently thinking AirBnB was the first to ever think of unlicensed boarding houses, Uber to “invent” the unlicensed gypsy cab.

 

Back to when cars were first a novelty, it actually looked for a while that electric cars would win out over internal combustion. But they, along with the Stanley Steamer car, did not prevail. For electric cars, the infrastructure and technology had not kept pace with the promise, and the idea was effectively shelved for 100 years, and now its time has come. My read is that infrastructure and technology has not yet caught up to dockless e-scooter apps as a practical last-mile solution on a mass scale. In this case, it is not electrical infrastructure or battery technology, but city infrastructure. American cities have been built around the automobile for the past 90 years, making them an unfriendly place for smaller, slower, more vulnerable wheeled transportation, and the technology seems not yet ready for efficient distribution of scooters to where they are needed and to keep them from underfoot. Their moment has probably not yet come.  And you are right that it wouldn’t make sense to make new laws for something that may be a flash in the pan, but we don’t have to make new laws, do we? There are laws against blocking and littering public sidewalks. There are laws requiring businesses that operate in public areas to get permission from local authorities, which indicate that the authorities have the power to review and require certain conditions, even deny activities.

 

I’m a part of the riding community here in Houston, and I say you a vastly exaggerating the number of bicycles ridden on crowded sidewalks, and from my observations of e-scooters in San Francisco, they were being ridden on crowded sidewalks far, far more commonly than bikes.

 

While you continue to double-down on making yourself look like a prat with your self-important pedantry over “shear” vs “sheer,” I’m just going to put this out here.

 

 

https://www.sciencealert.com/people-who-pick-up-grammar-mistakes-jerks-scientists-find

“People Who Constantly Point Out Grammar Mistakes Are Pretty Much Jerks, Scientists Find”

As if we needed science to tell us that.

 

neither AirBnB, nor Uber were inventions, they were a melding of two technologies in a way that hadn't been done previously. in business, a good business plan is not usually a single invention, it's usually when someone takes two good inventions and marries them. in the case of Uber I can say without a doubt the marrying of the smartphone with ride hailing is amazing. it is without a doubt a better solution than the cab. I can call for a cab, and then after call for an Uber. I will already be at my destination by the time the cab gets to my pickup location, and to add egg to the face of the cab solution, Uber is cheaper. it is a better solution. 

 

I have a friend that owns an electric car. I ran into him on Saturday as he was wandering the halls of Ikea aimlessly. I was there to find a cheap rug. he was there because his car didn't have enough juice to get him home and he had to 'refuel'. wasting an hour aimlessly wandering the halls of Ikea specifically because I need to refuel is not my idea of infrastructure being ready. anecdotal story, I know, but it is accurate. as I mentioned, many companies are starting to enact rules around how people leave scooters when they end their ride. so the solutions are coming without legislation. they are evolving into a good neighbor without every city they are in needing legislation.

 

when you started riding your bike, I'm sure you fell, that's part of growing. these companies go live with what they think is a good solution, it is a good solution. then as they are used in ways no one imagined they'd be used, new parameters are added to the solution to make it better. it's how all things work.

 

while there are a lot of people who do interchange the word grammar and vocabulary, they are not the same thing. http://www.differencebetween.info/difference-between-grammar-and-vocabulary

 

I pointed out a vocabulary mistake. I did not point out a grammar mistake. you're the only one who has pointed out a grammar mistake. you've called me a pedant. you've attempted to call me a jerk, the keyword in that link you provided was "consistently" so I think we're both in the clear. perhaps now, before you call me other names, you can agree it's time to just drop it and move on? if it helps, I'm terribly sorry I pointed out your vocabulary mistake.

Edited January 15, 2019 by samagon

[Reefmonkey]

I’m happy to drop it, just so we’re clear that there would be nothing to drop if you hadn’t made an issue out of something so inconsequential to score cheap points in the first place. 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Reefmonkey

[Angostura]

Based on my experience (in a large S. American city):

 

• They are really fun, especially on a bike path. 
• They are expensive on a per-mile basis. For the price of a subway ticket, which will get you all the way across the city, you can go maybe a mile on a scooter. For two people, an Uber is often cheaper.
• They're essentially un-usable on a crowded sidewalk. They top out at 20 kph (~12 mph), which is still 3X faster than walking pace, and, while not as bad as a bicycle on the sidewalk, they're a lot less maneuverable than a pedestrian.
• People DO use them on less crowded sidewalks, especially wider (>12 ft) ones, because it takes a lot of courage to compete with cars and buses for street space
• IF these become popular, cities will need to reconfigure rights of way, converting one lane of car traffic to cycles/scooters. Above a certain population density, the net result may actually DECREASE congestion (on streets that aren't thru-arterials), since scooters and bikes are far more space-efficient at moving people. If there is more space to ride these safely, a lot more people will use them.

 

If cities want space-efficient transportation (and, above a certain population density, car-based transportation becomes untenable) these are a good bridge between what you can reasonably expect people to walk (half a mile or so) and mass transit. These scooters are reasonably for trips up to a mile or two, and e-assist bikes are comfortable for 2-3X that, but adoption will depend on high-comfort infrastructure.

[skwatra]

I just spent a week in Oakland where my brother recently moved from SF. He's within a mile of a BART station and the 'last mile' scooters were everywhere. I never used them as I had my young ones with me and we just walked everywhere we needed to go. I honestly didn't run in to riders much, but the littered scooters were somewhat annoying especially when they were left on sidewalks and I was trying to walk by with my stroller, and ended up on the street to get around them. From a quick external view, they seemed enjoyable, somewhat annoying, and not cost effective (for the company that gathers them up and recharges them and the users). In Houston, I am guessing they would be less enjoyable, more annoying, and less cost effective.

[wilcal]

 

Lime making a presentation at the bike summit this weekend as well...

 

[BeerNut]

2 hours ago, wilcal said:

 

Lime making a presentation at the bike summit this weekend as well...

 

https://buffalobayou.org/visit/destination/buffalo-bayou-park/

Rules and Regulations

• Scooters and skateboards are prohibited.
• Motorized vehicles prohibited off roadways & beyond parking areas.

 

Edited May 16, 2019 by BeerNut

[urbanize713]

1 hour ago, wilcal said:

 

Lime making a presentation at the bike summit this weekend as well...

 

That is awesome! are they fully launching in Houston? 

[BeerNut]

[wilcal]

40 minutes ago, urbanize713 said:

That is awesome! are they fully launching in Houston? 

 

No idea, but I would assume we are heading that direction. I'll bet some info is out by the end of the week.

 

11 minutes ago, BeerNut said:

 

Hahaha. Fortunately, I think plan is to limit rentals to 16+

 

Also, I actually already asked the BBP Twitter account if they are planning on changing their ban on all scooters (motorized or not) and they replied and said that they were aware scooters were possibly coming and they had talked about it, then deleted that tweet, and replied again and said that the city would be implementing rules for the scooters. No reply to followup question about them currently having stricter rules than the city. 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2019 by wilcal

[Reefmonkey]

1 hour ago, BeerNut said:

https://buffalobayou.org/visit/destination/buffalo-bayou-park/

Rules and Regulations

• Scooters and skateboards are prohibited.
• Motorized vehicles prohibited off roadways & beyond parking areas.

 

Violating city regulations for scooters on a trail as their very first activity in our city - kinda sends a message about what their attitude is going to be vis a vis respecting and working with city authority, and pretty typical for these "disruptive app" companies.

[HoustonBoy]

Scooters are a pain in the ass, but one positive aspect is that they encourage people to be on the streets and to engage more with their city. In Austin, and in Corpus Christi, I've noticed so many more people exploring the city-scape and all of it's hidden streets and buildings. That is something I've always wanted in Houston. I think one of the larger challenges that Lime, Bird etc. will face in Houston is vandalization/theft of their scooters.

Edited May 16, 2019 by HoustonBoy

[BeerNut]

@HoustonBoy Interacting with the street-scape is great for GFR.

[HoustonBoy]

5 hours ago, BeerNut said:

@HoustonBoy Interacting with the street-scape is great for GFR.

Exactly! It really does help connect people to their city.

[102IAHexpress]

Saw this in the WSJ today.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lime-ads-evoke-a-mission-beyond-renting-out-scooters-11558002600?mod=hp_minor_pos1

 

 

On a somewhat related note, one of my friends from law school was just hired at Spin. Apparently these scooter start ups need a lot of lawyers. 

[wilcal]

Anyone talk to the Lime rep(s) at the Houston Bike Summit this weekend? Evidently they were showing off their newest scooter with 10" wheels and a front suspension. No official announcement of course or we would have seen it. 

[wilcal]

On 5/19/2019 at 7:25 PM, wilcal said:

Anyone talk to the Lime rep(s) at the Houston Bike Summit this weekend? Evidently they were showing off their newest scooter with 10" wheels and a front suspension. No official announcement of course or we would have seen it. 

 

Managed to talk to someone who talked to the rep.

 

Lime is just waiting on "the city to get their $!#@ together". Evidently they want  to do painted boxes in the city ROW for scooter parking. 

Edited May 21, 2019 by wilcal

[samagon]

On 5/16/2019 at 1:49 PM, Reefmonkey said:

Violating city regulations for scooters on a trail as their very first activity in our city - kinda sends a message about what their attitude is going to be vis a vis respecting and working with city authority, and pretty typical for these "disruptive app" companies.

 

just so I understand clearly, you're holding Lime responsible for how Chris Matthews of Houston Business Journal used one of their scooters when he rented it?

[wilcal]

59 minutes ago, samagon said:

 

just so I understand clearly, you're holding Lime responsible for how Chris Matthews of Houston Business Journal used one of their scooters when he rented it?

 

He reported that the Lime rep rode it from the Galleria area to downtown (on twitter, not in his article) 

[Reefmonkey]

On 5/22/2019 at 4:26 PM, samagon said:

 

just so I understand clearly, you're holding Lime responsible for how Chris Matthews of Houston Business Journal used one of their scooters when he rented it?

As wilcal said, the Lime rep rode the scooter from the Galleria area to downtown. Matthews's tweet:

 

" I rode the lone operating Lime scooter in Houston yesterday. Lime scooter rep rode it from the Galleria down the Buffalo Bayou trail to his downtown hotel during rush hour. Would you use these scooters instead of driving your car around Houston? "

[samagon]

I obviously failed the possessive adjectives part of English class.

[j_cuevas713]

I saw this scooter sharing program in Austin this past weekend and that thing is a disaster waiting to happen. I almost hit 3 different people who were swerving through traffic. 

[brian0123]

3 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

I saw this scooter sharing program in Austin this past weekend and that thing is a disaster waiting to happen. I almost hit 3 different people who were swerving through traffic. 

I haven't seen them in practice yet... but curious how are they different from bikes?

[j_cuevas713]

9 minutes ago, brian0123 said:

I haven't seen them in practice yet... but curious how are they different from bikes?

It's not so much the method of transportation as much as how people were carelessly weaving through traffic as if every driver would notice and not hit them. It also seemed like a huge fad but it was interesting to see people use them because you could literally drop it off along the sidewalk and it looked to be an efficient mode of transit for getting across the city quickly. 

[ADCS]

I use the scooters at least once a week in Austin, though I prefer the ebikes.

[cspwal]

16 hours ago, brian0123 said:

I haven't seen them in practice yet... but curious how are they different from bikes?

 

Scooters are cheaper and lighter, so more can be deployed in a dockless rental type scenario.

 

Additionally, I think the scooters have a lower barrier to entry - you can just step on one and go, while a bike you mount/dismount.  

[crock]

biggest difference is you don't get sweaty taking a scooter 1-2 miles.  source: we own both bikes and scooters and our decision on which to take is based almost completely on if we can be sweaty where we're ending up. 

[Reefmonkey]

22 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

It's not so much the method of transportation as much as how people were carelessly weaving through traffic as if every driver would notice and not hit them. It also seemed like a huge fad but it was interesting to see people use them because you could literally drop it off along the sidewalk and it looked to be an efficient mode of transit for getting across the city quickly. 

That was my observation this March when I was up in Austin as well.

[wilcal]

8 hours ago, ADCS said:

I use the scooters at least once a week in Austin, though I prefer the ebikes.

 

Houston BCycle just announced an ebike pilot program for June and July.

 

Only 4 bikes though 😕