E-Scooters roll into New York

I was in Southern California and lived through the boom and bust of E-scooters. Personally, I am a huge fan, but there is a long list of pros and cons worth considering.<p>Pros:<p>* Fast to start up<p>* Cheaper than uber<p>* Doesn’t depend on stations, so way more convenient<p>* No worry about keeping an eye on your scooter when you arrive; they were abundant enough that if yours gets taken you can grab another<p>* Genuinely super fun<p>Cons:<p>* Ugly; an eyesore<p>* Often in the way— a nightmare for accessibility<p>* So many companies meant you needed 5 different apps<p>* Vandalized&#x2F;battery theft often an issue<p>* Not good for carrying goods<p>* Kinda dangerous, but then ones that topped out at 12 mph were less worth it<p>* Creeping up in price towards the end to help profitability, which made them also less worth it<p>The overall attitude was pretty split, but most of the people I know who disliked them had never ridden them. They really were INCREDIBLE for convenience. If your trip was 0.5-2 miles, they were amazing. I used them for running to shops, cafes, meeting at restaurants, etc.<p>I think there is a right way to do it, and that way has to include the convenience of leaving them near your destination. Bike shares that use stations are simply too annoying (if you haven’t got the map of stations memorized) to get the general public to catch on. However, they also have to be managed way better than they were at first.<p>Scooters were getting all types of people out of their cars, and they were good at it! Personally I really want the concept to stick around.

How many thousands of words and no mention of Revel?<p>Vespa-like electric scooter company operating in NYC for the last few years.<p>Solves a ton of problems:<p>1) faster snd operates in traffic (so less issue with their 25mph speed vs bikes, not operated on sidewalks so fewer peds to mow over, etc)<p>2) requires full-face helmet use and cursory safety training<p>3) street parks, and user is liable for tickets, which keeps them off the sidewalk and brings the city revenue<p>4) they’ve been good citizens, responsive to issues their riders cause<p>5) I don’t want to die from embarrassment being seen on one.

The main problem I&#x27;ve experienced with bike shares (NYC Citibike) is that often enough, there are no bikes when you need them, and the docks are full when you need to dock them. This situation isn&#x27;t frequent, but still common enough to be annoying.<p>The biggest benefit of e-scooters (and e-skateboards for that matter) is that you can fold them and take them into buildings. You can&#x27;t do that with a bicycle - ok you can with a folding bike, but if you need to lug them for more than a few minutes they&#x27;re quite heavy and cumbersome.

One aspect that seems unacknowledged (maybe it is in the article, I haven&#x27;t finished it) is weather. I bought an electric scooter and happily used it along with biking last summer. However the moment it turned cold in New York, scootering became significantly less appealing. My hands get really cold; snow, slush and ice increase danger and my friends were less likely to want to come with me.<p>It&#x27;s quite noticeable that the cities cited are all relatively warm places. I bet that as scooters expand to colder areas, they&#x27;ll have a harder time with adoption.<p>Edit: the article does acknowledge it!<p>&gt; If nothing else, the day would prove conclusively that scootering is not the best mode of travel in the dead of a New York winter. You can’t put your hands in your pockets while driving or lean into the wind. In a lot of ways, walking that last mile works better, and it’s free.

Archived version of the article for those paywalled<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;pSC7V" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;pSC7V</a>

I was going to make a snarky comment about finally legalizing electric bikes before messing with scooters, but I see that this happened last year.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dmv.ny.gov&#x2F;registration&#x2F;electric-scooters-and-bicycles-and-other-unregistered-vehicles" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dmv.ny.gov&#x2F;registration&#x2F;electric-scooters-and-bicycl...</a>

I love owning an electric scooter in a city in which no companies are allowed to rent them. All the upside of using it, none of the downside of people hating on them.

I love the idea of electric scooter (and bike) sharing but in practice it just doesn&#x27;t work.<p>Link scooters just started showing up in Seattle and I decided to take one a couple miles to meet up with a friend for dinner. It would have been faster to walk there.<p>After bout 6 or 7 minutes of riding and only making it half a mile (and one harrowing experience with a yellow light), I stopped at a Jump bike. I opened the Uber app to book it and couldn&#x27;t figure out how so I opened the Jump app. I wasn&#x27;t signed in and my Uber password wasn&#x27;t stored in my password manager so I had to reset my password. After doing that I finally made it into the Jump app only to have a single button that says &quot;Launch Uber&quot; and I was back to where I started. Of course I now had to sign in to the Uber app again since I just reset my password.<p>I still couldn&#x27;t figure out how to book the thing so I just called a Lyft and finally made it to the restaurant. (I did finally figure out how to book it once I was in the car. I think my problem was that maybe the bike I was standing near wasn&#x27;t showing up on the map.)<p>It was a bit of a comedy of errors last night but all my other experiences with electric scooters have been pretty inconvenient.

Coming from a rural area, with more-or-less long distances between shops - it is not only a device for cities! =)

Strictly already illegal in NYC.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;pSC7V" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;pSC7V</a>

Holy crap, that&#x27;s a lot of words. I&#x27;m pretty sure judicious editing could&#x27;ve halved the length of that.<p>Speaking as someone who lived in NYC for 10 years I am absolutely against the scooters that plague other cities coming to NYC. Why? Several reasons:<p>1. There are too many people on the sidewalks. At least cyclists almost always ride on the road. In my experience, amateur scooter riders think it&#x27;s fine to ride an electrified vehicle (often poorly) on the sidewalk. It&#x27;s not;<p>2. The sidewalks are too narrow already in most places. This is exacerbated by all the permits given for various news stands, outdoor seating and whatnot that create a ton of choke points on the sidewalks as is;<p>3. People are already really bad at effectively sharing the sidewalks as pedestrians. The three biggest categories here are tourists (this is probably the first time in their lives they&#x27;ve had the option of walking anywhere and it shows), phone zombies (just stop and send that text rather than walk oblivious to your surroundings at 1mph) and people who walk in groups and want to walk slowly 4 abreast.<p>Oh and as with cyclists, the problem isn&#x27;t the delivery people. They have an economic interest in getting where they&#x27;re going safely and quickly. The only time I see them (on vehicles) on the sidewalks is when they&#x27;re picking up or dropping off.<p>It&#x27;s all the shared bike and scooter people that are the problem.<p>At least previously the only scooter riders had their own scooter and were thus far fewer in number.<p>In other cities (eg Miami, even SF), the pedestrian density is far lower so it&#x27;s less of a problem.<p>Oh and of course people just dump the shared scooters in the middle of the sidewalk. Honestly, they&#x27;re a menace.<p>Here&#x27;s a compromise: get rid of 1 lane of parking on each street and widen both sidewalks by the space saved. Then there might be room.

&quot;Loved&quot;<p>I hate the scooters. I do not live in SV. People ride them like jackasses and cause problems for both drivers and pedestrians.