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I find this interesting, because in Dallas the scooters have proven much less problematic than the bikes. The bikes could best be described as "a throbbing mas

I find this interesting, because in Dallas the scooters have proven much less problematic than the bikes. The bikes could best be described as "a throbbing mass of externalities", but the scooters have largely avoided these problems... except for the issue with people illegally riding them on the sidewalk and nearly running pedestrians over. But that's minor compared to all the problems the bikes had.

distances 8y ago
I'm not familiar with the bike problem, mind sharing?
- amyjess 8y ago
  It started when the Dallas City Council passed a law allowing dockless bikeshare, and suddenly about six Chinese companies all dumped hundreds—if not thousands—of bikes each in Dallas. The biggest problem is that bikes were strewn everywhere. People would leave bikes in the middle of the sidewalks, often without even bothering to drop the kickstand. There was a pretty big stink about how a blind guy got injured tripping over a bike that was just laying in the middle of the sidewalk. And they'd throw the bikes down on people's front lawns and all over private property in general. And there was this massive glut of bikes. Six companies, hundreds if not thousands of bikes each, mostly concentrated in the middle of Dallas. Oh, and then the retaliation started. The population, pissed at the glut of bikes, began vandalizing them en masse. People would saw the bikes in half, throw them into ditches and creeks, and make impromptu art sculptures out of bikes and bike parts. If you weren't tripping over a bike some careless jackass left on the sidewalk, you were tripping over the mangled husk of a bike some vandal threw on the sidewalk to make a point. The bikes only stopped being a problem when a) scooters took over most of the demand, and b) Dallas passed a law requiring bike companies to clean up their messes at their expense. A couple of the companies pulled out, and the rest are shrinking their fleets.

distances 8y ago

I'm not familiar with the bike problem, mind sharing?

amyjess 8y ago
It started when the Dallas City Council passed a law allowing dockless bikeshare, and suddenly about six Chinese companies all dumped hundreds—if not thousands—of bikes each in Dallas. The biggest problem is that bikes were strewn everywhere. People would leave bikes in the middle of the sidewalks, often without even bothering to drop the kickstand. There was a pretty big stink about how a blind guy got injured tripping over a bike that was just laying in the middle of the sidewalk. And they'd throw the bikes down on people's front lawns and all over private property in general. And there was this massive glut of bikes. Six companies, hundreds if not thousands of bikes each, mostly concentrated in the middle of Dallas. Oh, and then the retaliation started. The population, pissed at the glut of bikes, began vandalizing them en masse. People would saw the bikes in half, throw them into ditches and creeks, and make impromptu art sculptures out of bikes and bike parts. If you weren't tripping over a bike some careless jackass left on the sidewalk, you were tripping over the mangled husk of a bike some vandal threw on the sidewalk to make a point. The bikes only stopped being a problem when a) scooters took over most of the demand, and b) Dallas passed a law requiring bike companies to clean up their messes at their expense. A couple of the companies pulled out, and the rest are shrinking their fleets.