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I think absolutely the opposite: this is a hugely positive disruption in North American cities. Car-centric urban design is such a disastrous problem in so many
by tyu100 8y ago
I think absolutely the opposite: this is a hugely positive disruption in North American cities. Car-centric urban design is such a disastrous problem in so many ways: land use, pollution, cost and so on, that we need massive and immediate disruption that's not going to happen from government fast enough.
The amount of land used and traffic problems caused by these scooters is nothing compared to how much public space is dedicated to moving and storing cars for personal use and is a actually a massive improvement. Additionally, if you've seen their actual use patterns in cities like Washington D.C., because of their dock-less nature and ease-of-payment they are being used by lower-income populations that don't use bike share or other similarly centrally planned options.
Scooters are hugely benign civil disobedience that are helping with what is probably the biggest problems in the world: pollution from personal transportation, whether carbon or localized exhaust. I am cheering them on completely and hope to see more similar disruptions that help the world and make investors rich.
- wpietri 8y agoCar-centric urban design certainly needs a change. I haven't owned a car in 20 years, and would love to see improvement. But I don't think you can have "massive and immediate disruption" to urban design. It's literally set in concrete. And as I said, I'm all for people trying out scooters. That scooter-spam startups are a smaller problem compared to cars does not make the problems not exist. It especially does not remove the problem of entrepreneurs shifting negative externalities of their business models on to anybody who doesn't protest loudly enough.