LOL
Cars do not park on the sidewalk?
Where do you live? I want to live there.
First of all, I did say “cars don’t usually occupy space on the sidewalk.” And where do you live that they normally do?
Toronto has banned riding e-scooters completely (although you still see people riding them).
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/e-scooter-toronto-ban-1.7214153
My understanding is that in Paris, the rental scooters are banned but not privately owned ones. So people still ride scooters but ones that they presumably don’t abandon on the sidewalk.
We don’t have them out here in the wilds of Chicago suburbia but, when we last visited family in residential Washington DC, it felt as though you had to regularly kick abandoned scooters and bikes out of the way to walk anywhere.
On a local FB page, someone posts narrated videos of abandoned electric scooters in a hushed, David Attenborough voice: “Here we see a herd of scooters, grazing on the banks of the creek, searching for a quick meal…One fine specimen is drinking at the water’s edge; appears to be male, about a year old…what a beauty!”
I wish. The biggest thing preventing cars from blocking sidewalks around here is the general lack of sidewalks.
Also, street parking doesn’t mix well with children being outside, because it obscures driver visibility, and kids have a tendency to dart between cars. In a residential area, kids freely playing should have priority over convenient parking.
But scooters are mildly annoying, and new-fangled.
So you agree with me that cars don’t occupy sidewalks?
They aren’t supposed to, but it’s a big enough problem in my city that they passed a law about it (which has not stopped it from happening): New Arizona law prohibits blocking sidewalks with vehicle
I give up.
Does that mean you agree with me that cars do occupy sidewalks some of the time? If you look at the link, you can see many examples of this, and I can attest that I see it a lot.
Funny you mention both places. Chicago suburbs because that’s where I see the largest packs of kids and more likely to be a hassle to traditional 4 wheel motorists like me. However, they’re personally owned scooters and bikes and ebikes and heelies and boots with the fur and everything else. In other words, it’s a pack problem.
And Washington DC is where I first fell into love and admiration with the escooter urban rent model. As a tourist, I found them fun, efficient & easy and immediately began shopping for one (& ultimately buying) when I got home.
That’s adorable but wish it was something to do with water besides ‘let’s go throw the bikes into’ it. Or some. I’d have gone with Stop & Go Litebikes or something.
They may be less of a trash nuisance in the touristy areas for obvious reasons. Out in the residential neighborhood we were at, they were basically sidewalk debris.
Here’s another story about cars parked on sidewalks. I hope this establishes that it’s not an unusual problem.
I get it and have stepped over plenty (and Divvys) since. Worse, people seem increasingly at liberty to bring them into stores, both parked inside the entry but also pushed around inside the TX Maxx or Walgreens. South Park did a whole episode about them in 2018: a character, Mr Mackey, the Mmm-Kay guy, goes on a rampage against scooters and gathers them up in a Grinch Halloween parody.
This just showed up on my local news site:
Lime announced Wednesday it will expand its e-scooter fleet in Milwaukee and add a foot patrol team to correct misplaced and misparked scooters.
“Lime is making a major investment to substantially increase our fleet size in Milwaukee to ensure we can meet the high demand for shared, sustainable transit across the city. We are also expanding our Foot Patrol team and doing everything in our power to support the community’s desire for reliable ways to get around while working to ensure that growth happens responsibly and that safe riding and proper parking remain paramount. We are making real, tangible investments in Milwaukee that folks should notice immediately, from our more available fleet to our foot patrol keeping streets tidy and e-scooters available for those who rely on them,” said LeAaron Foley, Regional Head of Government Relations at Lime.
Huh??
I was in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year, and there was a guy collecting e-scooters on the beachfront like this: https://www.instagram.com/p/DM_G2Y5yfFJ/
I assume he was paid by the city to pick them up and return them to their stations. His balance skills were impressive!
I admit that I do not know what the expectation is WRT where you are supposed to get and leave an e-scooter. In my ignorance, I had imagined that they required some charging station.
I am not the most tech-advanced person, and I do not know what the agreements are between the vendors and both their customers and the municipalities. But I would suggest this is not an insurmountable problem. The company could charge a deposit which would be refunded if the customer texted a photo of the scooter being left a an appropriate place. I also imagined that there was some sort of GPS locator or something that would allow the vendor to identify where they were left. So a deposit could be refunded once GPS documented that it was left at an appropriate place.
However, as I am so clearly ignorant WRT so many aspects of commercial e-scooter rentals, I will bow out. I have posted in other threads about my dislike for youth riding e-devices in my suburban area. Yesterday a young person was riding a gas-powered minibike up and down the street. When I see that, I find myself wishing the kids would get hit by a car - an emotional reaction I do not relish.
I wish the Bublr product name, itself cute in Wisc, referred to something to do with water or fountains. And, given that so many rent bikes & scooters wind up underwater, a wet name might give even more people ideas.
I know how we can really make this thing bubl! To the marina!