I’m always amused when people get enraged by scooters or bikes on the sidewalk but see nothing wrong in giving over the vast majority of public spaces to cars. Maybe your priorities might be ever so slightly askew here, brother/sister/other kind of sibling.
Here’s the thing, sidewalks have a speed limit to ensure the safety of everyone on them. Scooters or bikes can go faster, yet get to share that space. Me being mad at these things on sidewalks is me being mad at the city planers not giving them their own lane. Take it from the cars, give them a portal and make it in another dimension, idgaf, get them to a safe speed or away from people walking at 5kmh.
The free market will solve this problem and introduce three new problems that the free market will solve, contributing to the economy and growth. Forever.
Until someone unlocks the enshittification meta, in which we package worse problems as solutions to be sold.
I’ll bet it’s possible to “borrow” one, gut the electronics, and repurpose it.
That’s a good point. Is it even possible to vandalize or steal something That’s been dumped/abandoned on public grounds?
I see this at events and festivals in our town all the time and I think it’s a massive win. Every scooter you see is likely one less car clogging up our streets or taking up a parking spot. Plus, a lot of these riders are out-of-towners bringing business to our local shops and helping the economy. It’s a shame there are so many NIMBYs hating on them when the trade-off is clearly better for the town’s bottom line. I’ll take a sidewalk with a few scooters over a gridlocked street any day. Plus they are super fun to ride.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CARS?!? WON’T ANYBODY THINK OF THE POOR CARS?!?
In Germany this went reaaaallly awesome. First, some years back we had this with the shit bikes and it turned out to be a burden on all and there are massive bike dumps in China.
Then a while later we allow the same with scooters.
And as usual, some people with shit asshole behavior messing it up for everyone.
The other thing I do not get in my head is using public space for business. If I can’t just do that companies should be forbidden too.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been an initiative to get all the DHL/Amazon/etc. pick-up boxes to all share one station.
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That would mean prioritising the public interest over the profits of large corporations. We don’t do that here. And if you think that better organisation would benefit everybody, including the corporations, you’re a filthy communist.
I think that’s just the Post Office, with extra steps.
Agree with your point, but cars are far worse…
False dichotomy. We can invest in public transit or even public bike/scooter rentals without allowing free reign for a private company to make profits. So we can all say “fuck cars” while simultaneously criticizing this e-waste as well.
We can invest in public transit or even public bike/scooter rentals without allowing free reign for a private company to make profits
can we though?
True
Agreed that cars are worse. If they were used primarily in bike lanes or on roads, I might believe they’re displacing cars. As it is, they’re primarily operated on sidewalks, effectively displacing pedestrian traffic and public transportation.
They’re still displacing cars though? Most times I’ve used one, the alternative would have been taking my car, or a ride hailing app. I’m not taking one instead of a leisurely stroll, I’m taking one to get somewhere in a reasonable amount of time. Which walking was never going to accomplish.
Yeah thats so true
Unless they’re parked legally I just push them over, away from the sidewalk. And someone else has started as well! They do a decent job of coming to get them and put them somewhere allowed, all in a row. But the app requires you to take geostamped photos so they have proof their riders are just putting them in the middle of the sidewalk and walking away, and they don’t care.
Flipside, they’re hella nice to grab to work if my car is down or if it’s just nice, and you could techically get across my entire city on them (stopping to swap I assume) so there’s a bit of democratization about them, but you’d be dumb to try that.
They should be free if they’re going to be letting them leave tomorrow’s e-waste on our sidewalks. Maybe we could all pay for them together somehow idk
Thanks for your business. We’ll just leave these externalities here for you to enjoy.
they find so many of these in our river
We hage designated parking spots for these in Ottawa (Canada) that’s not limited to any one company and it works pretty well. I own an e-scooter but I’ll still often rent one if I dont want to park mine somewhere
That kinda looks like a lot of cars not on the road. Sure, they should have designated drop off and pick up locations so you don’t get this mess. However, I think these lime bikes are providing an alternative option to solo drivers.
I do believe that’s a 2016-2019 Chevy volt in the first picture.
The free market will solve you
Each end of the spectrum a has its own issues.
A centrally managed economy can be great for making unpopular but necessary changes, but are prone to massive failures when the law of unintended consequences inevitably shows up to bite you in the ass.
Free market economies are great for letting complexities sort themselves out, but are terrible for quickly making necessary changes, and you end up with “death by 1000 cuts” instead of one but failure.
In the end, I think it’s best to use the right tool for the right situation. As the goods/services are less critical, or the barriers to doing it yourself are low, a free market approach tends to work better. As the goods/services become more critical, and the do it yourself barriers are high, the free market approach becomes increasingly shitty for everyone but the owners.
How are they all aggregated together? I’ve never seen more than a handful in one place at a time. Does lime hire someone to gather them all into one place in some cities?
Not sure, but if I had to guess, due to the no parking signs, bus behind the trees, gate off to the right and number of lime things there, it’s likely at a convention of some sort. So people likely thought taking those was easier than finding/paying for parking. If true, this is lowering the number of cars needed in the area
Ah, that would make sense. A 12 hour problem with a 12 hour solution.
Last time I saw so many in one place, it was at a beer festival.
