It astonishes me how rapidly San Francisco has mobilized to get the scooters off the street in comparison to how little they have been able to accomplish to get the poop, needles, and condoms off the same streets.<p>I know which I would choose, if I was told to pick one or the other to be removed from city streets.
>For the first six months of the pilot, a total of 1,250 scooters may be permitted. If the first six months are successful, the total number of scooters may increase to 2,500 in months seven through 12.<p>While I support the city's efforts to balance the downsides, mainly the sidewalk parking issue, with the upsides of cheap, clean, and accessible mobility, I think there are two wrongheaded decisions the city is making.<p>1. Why limit the number of operators? Is this an effort to create a medallion system or similar? That failed tremendously as it was administered under the old Cab system. It also risks preempting new developments, e.g. at some point the scooters will be able to drive themselves to you. You do not want to give incumbents a legal mechanism to block that competitive challenge.<p>2. Why limit the number of scooters? It is already difficult to find one of these for a ride to / home from work. Limiting the number just creates incentives for bad behavior by users. Ever seen someone 'guarding' an inactive scooter? I saw someone hiding one under his lunch table (it was 'available' in the app), presumably so that he could ride it home when done. Artificial scarcity is likely to create many more problems than it solves.<p>In both cases a better public policy proposal would be marginal taxes per unit on the scooters themselves with no cap on number. The community incurs an externality in allowing these operators to enjoy free on sidewalk parking, simply set a price to balance that and let commuters decide how many units should be around. Or to put it into econospeak: Pigovian taxes are better than quotas.
>As part of the pilot, up to five qualified companies could be issued permits to operate shared, motorized scooters in San Francisco<p>So essentially if you're not fast or well connected enough to get one of those permits then you're shit out of luck? What happens if a company scooter-sharing hurts gets one of those permits to sit on? Why did this industry need a limited pilot in the first place??
>offer a low-income plan<p>This one is odd to me. BMW doesn't have to offer low income cars. AFAIK Uber doesnt have to cut fares for low-income folks. Walking and the bus/train is the low income plan.
It's actually pretty good that there are 5 spots. Bird, Lime, Spin are here now. Lyft has expressed interest. SkipScooters, from 2 of the founders of Boosted skateboards, seems like they might know how to make a great scooter. Maybe Uber/Jump would make 6?<p>The other interesting competition aspect is that each is limited to 250 scooters. Not enough to build a network. So you'll have to join a few of them to make it reliable. This will keep some less competitive companies alive a little longer.<p>Long term it would be crazy to prevent competition like this. And worth watching, cities are laughably poor at good licensing. There are supposed to be 45,000 licensed uber/lyft drivers vs 1,500 taxi medallions in SF. 30 times too few taxis! It's amazing that was the status quo for 40 years. [1]<p>The slow ramp is the huge bummer though. Three months of 1250, 6 months of 2500 would make more sense. Then 10-30 thousand for a couple years. You need a lot of vehicles to make a reliable network. Same goes for Jump style locking bikes.<p>Scooters are a little objectionable and probably need to be managed, but wow cars are so much worse. Any possible replacement for SF's 500,000 cars should get the fullest support and permissiveness from government. They take up huge amounts of space for parking, kill people, cause pollution, and sit in traffic jams. Tesla is cool but in cities cars are not the answer (go Boring company go!).<p>It's worth pointing out that in SF you can still buy and operate your own electric scooter or ebike. Unlike the baffling NYC situation. SF is actually ok at adapting, just really slowly.<p>Some numbers:<p><pre><code> 500,000 cars registered in SF [2]
20 traffic fatalities in 2017, killing
14 pedestrians
2 cyclists
4 motorcycle drivers
0 car drivers
It sounds like they were all killed by cars.[3]
</code></pre>
[1] <a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/clogged-streets-45000-uber-and-lyft-drivers-in-san-francisco-grab-lawmakers-attention" rel="nofollow">http://www.ktvu.com/news/clogged-streets-45000-uber-and-lyft...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/add5eb07-c676-40b4-98b5-8011b059260a/est_fees_pd_by_county.pdf?MOD=AJPERES" rel="nofollow">https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/add5eb07-c676-40b4...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://sf.curbed.com/2018/1/5/16854592/traffic-deaths-san-francisco-2017" rel="nofollow">https://sf.curbed.com/2018/1/5/16854592/traffic-deaths-san-f...</a>
> San Francisco supports transportation innovation, but it cannot come at the price of public safety,” Herrera said. “This permit program represents a thoughtful, coordinated and effective approach to ensure that San Francisco strikes the right balance. We can have innovation, but it must keep our sidewalks safe and accessible for all pedestrians.<p>This. Exactly. In the past week alone, I've been witness to, or victim in, 3 pedestrian safety incidents. In the first one, a dude and a lady companioned were riding the "Bird"s and turned into the sidewalk I was walking on (Fillmore Street) and crashed into me. They awkwardly apologized and were gone, didn't even bother to see if I was injured. In another incident on Market and 1st (going towards the bay bridge) a scooter "Parked" on the sidewalk was blown from the wind and had falled on the sidewalk ramp. Saw an old black lady in a wheel chair struggling to get around it to get on the sidewalk. The 3rd was a Muni driver honking at 2 riders who were bank in the middle of the road on Howard St going towards the Ferry Building. He almost crashed the bus into them.<p>While I'm all for innovation, it cannot come at the cost of pedestrian safety. Even if these startups meant for their scooters to be riden on the road, and not the sidewalk (It's ILLEGAL to ride a motorized vehicle on the sidewalk of San Francisco[1] ) only a small minority of the riders seem to be following it. I've seen so many riding it on the sidewalks.<p>[1] Source: Reminder: It Is Illegal to Ride Scooters On City Sidewalks => <a href="https://sf.curbed.com/2016/6/1/11831080/scooters-sidewalks-illegal-fines-transportation" rel="nofollow">https://sf.curbed.com/2016/6/1/11831080/scooters-sidewalks-i...</a>