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So are rentals scooters still popular in US cities or has that trend subsided? Last I heard people were getting fed up finding them everywhere, problems with vandals, etc.
My city still has them. They get picked up every night and put at whatever corners or lots they gather them to.
Honestly in my experience anyone that's complained about them has no idea at all what they do or how they work, so anyone "fed up finding them everywhere" is simply ignorant 99% of the time. They're supposed to be everywhere lol that's the entire point.
That’s all fine until they’re blocking sidewalks and access ways. Trying to push a stroller or wheelchair through the renta-scooter slalom course is horrible.
In my city, we have strict parking designated zones and you have to take a photo. If it's left on the sidewalk or road, it won't let you end the trip, implies it will fine you, plus they'll send someone to move it.
Likewise. I live in an extremely high foot traffic/high scooter traffic area (beach town in SoCal) and I very rarely see them anywhere outside of the designated zones.
I'm glad you're not over exaggerating or anything
I walk 20 minutes each way to and from work, and every single day at least once I'm having to skirt around a stack of scooters that some asshole has just dumped in the middle of the footpath blocking most of it.
I'm able bodied so at worst it's annoying having to walk on the muddy grass, but if I was in anyway disabled - required a wheelchair, or a mobility scooter, or just crutches - it will effectively render the footpath impassable.
If the scooter companies are going to take over public property for their own private profit, they should at a minimum be paying to rent space from the city - same as if you want to hold a private concert in a public park
This is less a problem about the actual scooters though and more of an issue with the people using them (or people setting them up) not giving a damn about where they're left.
I have mobility issues and can't use the footpath on Fridays because that's rubbish collection day and people just leave their bins in the middle of the footpath. People in my area also park on the footpaths, across the foot paths and leave all sorts of crap from their property leaning out onto them. That's despite it being illegal to do so.
If most people used the scooters responsibly (put their bins out responsibly, parked their cars on their property or road, etc. etc.) it would mostly be a non-issue.
I agree. That is the heart of the problem.
I didn’t say they block every sidewalk in the city. I said when they DO it’s extremely disruptive. Relax.
S/He is not. Even one blocked sidewalk means that I need to double back on the block if I am using my wheelchair. One scooter is all it takes, and depending on the length of the block, it can easily add 20 minutes to a commute.
Them 'supposed to be everywhere' doesn't change that fact that they litter up the sidewalk and use the public areas of my town as a pseudo frontage for their business.
I have no problem with the bike systems that have docs for the bikes, it centralizes the locations and keeps the bike organized.
It's not ignorance, it's a full understanding that they pollute the public areas and already limited walkways in my city.
Ohmygod people other than you are using the public services! The pollution!
Seriously though, it's going to be different in every city. Your city might not be a good place for them. My city has them being used all the time.
They are a for profit company, not a public service.
The scooters are not a problem on wide sidewalks and are better than more vehicle traffic, but they can certainly get in the way on narrow sidewalks.
In some countries the public transport is run by for-profit companies too. In my city, for example, ALL of the public transport are contracted private companies. They're all liveried as public transport, but they're still privately run.
There is a key distinction between a contracted public service and a private company running a for-profit business. Think buses (as you described) vs taxis.
Not always. And I don't see the key distinction you mean. Can you explain further.
Using the example of my city again, there's no difference between the buses and taxis here in terms of contracted or not. The various bus companies are all privately owned. Some still have their own liveries. Some have the city council liveries. Some bus services don't have regular contracts with the council/government at all and just run various private services. Sometimes the council will contract them for one off services. Regardless of how they look or the contract (or lack thereof), they're all privately owned.
All the taxis are private owned. But the government/council contracts them for certain purposes. For example, if you are injured and unable to drive, ACC will pay for a taxi to take you to and from health services.
All of these companies are for-profita nd make profit from their contracts.
The profit made by some of the public services by private companies is a regular issue of contention in this country. As is the selling off by state owned public interest facilities (such as the rail system, power generation, communications, etc.).
I guess that puts me in the 1%. I live in Richmond, VA. It’s a great city for scooters and on occasion I will rent one. That said, they really do literally litter the sidewalks. If I go for a run, I will 100% have to avoid scooters that have been improperly parked and are blocking the sidewalk. I feel bad for disabled people because sometimes the sidewalk is completely blocked for somebody in a wheelchair. There are too many of them for the demand. It can be quite annoying.
In my European city they're still popular but imho it's a grift to get money from investors with large pockets. I see brands popping out and go out of the market in 6 months. They just need to lose just the right amount of money in order to have the longest list of supported cities at the moment of raising capital. It's an application that's too expensive for every day use (1 euro unlock fee + 20 cents a minute in a city with a subway and extensive bus network???) but at the same time that ridiculous amount of money is clearly not enough to be sustainable. And they all use dark patterns. App forces you to register with email and sms verification just to see prices and you need to recharge credit that you might be never be able to use. Most they auto charge the credit card for 10 euro as soon as the credit goes under 5 euro.
Maybe the real money making activity is unusable credit in user accounts?
Yeah the pricing only makes sense for occasional use, yet of course they market it for your daily commutes as well. It would cost me about 5€ to ride to work with those, another 5€ to ride back, which would total something like 100€ per month.
I just bought my own instead as, it's a fun, practical and cheap way to commute if you own your own. I can easily carry it with me to my apartment so it doesn't get stolen and costs next to nothing to use compared to a car.
Yes, for commutes don't make any sense
I got a 60 min coupon to try the service, to go home I take the subway then I choose between bus + 2 min walk or just 10 minutes walk. With the scooter I can do it in 5 minutes but:
It took one minute to unlock
I could be fined as my city requires all riders to have an helmet
It takes 5+ minutes to lock because the app is "smart" and uses ai to see from a picture if you parked it correctly. No signal or bad lighting makes the photo unclear? Try to park in a different neighborhood...
So I pay 2 euro for do the same route in the same time that I would take by foot. Not good for commutes, not good for short routes, not good for long routes
Not living in a city with these scooters but in a country that has 10+ different virtual wallets services. I can tell you 101% it's all about the credit sit in the customers' accounts that obviously easy but not straightforward to pull out and stay there a long long time.
It was never about the "convenience" for anyone. It's the same scheme of holding people's credit.
Same in my smaller UK city. If you're a tourist, it's probably a decent idea. Might work in London or somewhere like that. But Nottingham? Who is going there to see the sights? There's only a slightly rubbish castle. Don't take long to see that. Most of the Robin Hood tat is up at Sherwood Forest, and you ain't taking a toy scooter to go and see that.
For a commuter, that scooter would be taken to their office, would sit outside all day, then they'd take it back. Just the regular 9 to 5 workday. That's not a sustainable business model. They'd need to be just in a really busy area, and in use all the time.
You can make more money with a flop than with a hit??
I hope to see the prison yard scooter industry taking investors soon.
I can't say anything about US cities, but they are all over the place in Canadian cities(or at least they are where I live)
Denver still has a ton of them. They’re still a huge logistics problem, but the city seems to be putting “protected” lanes in to help with scooters and bikes. Time will tell.
My city still has them. They're pretty widely used, but I think we're a good scenario for them. Our sidewalks aren't cramped, we're a very spread out city, and our public transit isn't stellar.
They didn't last where I live, but my mother lives in a town about an hour away (Bloomington, Indiana) which still has them, and they appear to be popular.
I live in a major US city, and yes they are still everywhere and being used. Here they have an actual use since walkability isn't the best, and at worse are just a nuisance with the way they block parts of the sidewalk and can be left anywhere with little consequence.
They took them out of my small town, mostly due to the company (I think it was Bird in our area) not picking them up for weeks on end.
I'm personally glad they're gone, too many douche canoes leaving them in the handicapped parking spots and on the walking trails. Finally had to lodge a complaint with the company when we found a bunch of them in front of the ER at my workplace...not like we have people who have mobility issues going in there or anything.
lots of people throw them in the river
Which is incredibly gross. Stealing components from them is at least practical, but destroying them for funsies is equal parts childish and wasteful and not to mention dangerous. No one needs additional garbage to fish out of the water.
Shouldn't leave them on the sidewalk then
That’s gross, and so are you.
Whatever, get your trash off the sidewalk
They take up way less space than what's allocated for cars. But because it appears different you'll not notice that the car parking takes away so much space that could be allocated to e.g. a wider sidewalk, dedicated bike lines, more green, or parking for more space efficient methods of transport such as rental scooters.
I’m against car parking on streets too, that doesn’t mean random companies should get to dump their product anywhere they want on the sidewalks.
Oh big man over here lol
How is trash in the river better?
Yeah I saw a couple videos of people magnet fishing them out. The one amazingly still worked!