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Electric scooter company Bird files for bankruptcy
(techcrunch.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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On one hand, the scooters were a pain in the ass. They dumped scooters all over sidewalks blocking the way. People often rode them on sidewalks posing a danger to people walking.
On the other hand, it was a low-pollution way of getting around a city without needing a car, and people actually used the scooters. If we're going to keep the world from melting, there need to be fewer cars. Not just fewer internal-combustion cars, fewer cars in general. If we just replace gasoline engines with electric motors, it's not going to solve the climate crisis. Cars also just make cities awful to walk, bike or use a scooter in. So, even if they were all electric, it would be annoying.
Personally, I always liked the bike sharing options a lot more than the scooter options. Whenever I was a tourist in a city that had those bike share programs, that's always how I preferred to get around. You see a lot more, you can stop anywhere and take pictures, and when you're done you can just plug the bike into the nearest available bike storage stand. But, scooters could be part of the solution. There are probably people who would ride scooters who wouldn't use bikes, even e-bikes. If anything reduces the number of car journeys people take, it's probably a good thing.
I've seen this sentiment around, but where else are you supposed to ride eScoooters and bicycles? Of course ideally they belong in the bike lane, but most places don't have bike lines, so the alternatives are sidewalks or in the road with cars.
If we're gonna get people out of cars, we need to recognize that walking+transit doesn't work for everyone a lot of people and that a bicycle/ eScooter is the solution (look at Amsterdam/ Copenhagen how well bicycles work) , but bike lanes don't get built overnight, especially when few people cycle, if their banished from the safe sidewalk and only allowed to cycle in the dangerous road.
(I've lumped bikes and eScooters together since they both solve the same problem of rapid personal transport, both having speeds of 20-30 kph which is significantly more than pedestrians but less than cars)
On the road.
I agree that some people will get scared of being on the road with cars, but that's where they belong if there are no bike lanes. The catch-22 is that you can't get enough traffic to justify bike lanes until you have bike lanes. It takes someone to make the gamble that "if you build it, they will come". And, even then, drivers are going to be extremely dangerous. In the Netherlands, drivers largely aren't, but in North America there's a combination of drivers not expecting bikes, so making honest mistakes that get bikers killed, and drivers being evil assholes who don't think bikes belong near them and will drive dangerously and kill people.
Netherlands has reached a state where bikers feel safe because everyone bikes and it's safe. That means drivers always expect bikes. That makes biking safer, so more people are willing to bike.
Still, fundamentally, until there are bike lanes, bikes and scooters need to stay off sidewalks. Scooters and people who aren't experienced cyclists probably shouldn't ride on major roads either. Drivers are just too dangerous, and the speed difference between the two is too big. But, on smaller roads where the top speeds are about 30 km/h, the bikes and scooters will be going similar speeds to the cars. That's not that fast for a vehicle, but it's way too fast for the sidewalk.
Road or cycleway. Pedestrian only sidewalk is not place for bicycles or scooters due to their greater speed.
There is combined cycleway and walkways, but there the point is those are wider than mere sidewalks, so there is room for cycles and scooters to safely overtake pedestrians.