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Dockless is the problem in dense urban areas; they clog walkways and lead to a lot of discarded scooters around the places that have the least space for them. T

Dockless is the problem in dense urban areas; they clog walkways and lead to a lot of discarded scooters around the places that have the least space for them. The docks are basically the city setting aside a piece of land (usually just 1 parking spot worth) dedicated to bikes. A single square foot of urban sidewalk space is incredibly valuable, so IMO it's better to be intentional about how it gets used.

zapita 7y ago
If we're concerned about using up municipal land for vehicle storage, shouldn't we first address the enormous amount of street space permanently reserved for car storage?
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  Not disagreeing with you at all, but it's a politically sticky issue to change the status quo on. Many cities are starting to do away with it in dense areas though.
- thatfrenchguy 7y ago
  In most european countries, you pay for parking in cities though
- gruez 7y ago
  >the enormous amount of street space permanently reserved for car storage? This comparison always gets made, but at least car parking is done is officially sanctioned places, as opposed to dockerless bikes where they're dumped wherever.
  - zapita 7y ago
    If we allocated as much space for scooter storage than we do for car storage, wouldn't scooter parking also be done in officially sanctioned places?
  - celticninja 7y ago
    Cars are parked almost everywhere because sanctioned car parking areas are ubiquitous. There are still issues with people parking cars wherever they want, especially by the more well off who can afford the parking tickets. I see cars on sidewalks, double parked, parked in non-parking areas etc. It's just that they are a smaller percent of total cars. I expect the issue would get worse before it improved if the number of official parking spots was reduced
  - Rebelgecko 7y ago
    One parking space for a car could easily be repurposed to fit a dozen scooters. Some cities have been doing exactly that (https://la.streetsblog.org/2018/11/08/santa-monica-installs-in-street-e-scooter-parking-corrals/ https://la.streetsblog.org/2018/11/08/santa-monica-installs-...)
    - sp332 7y ago
      Doesn't this have exactly the downsides of docks?
      - Rebelgecko 7y ago
        Some of them. The downsides of docks it doesn't have: * You can mix scooters and bikes in the same place * You can put vehicles from different companies in the same place * Lower maintenance costs so (hopefully) would be possible to make them more ubiquitous than docks * If there's an overflowing number of scooters in a spot, you still have the option of jutting a bit into the sidewalk. Even if you never actually need to do that, knowing that it's an option will probably encourage more use. In the past I've avoided docked bike rentals because my destination only had 2 or 3 spaces left in the docks. Even though I probably would've been able to park, that low level of anxiety someone else in this thread mentioned was enough to convince me to change my plans.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    dockless bikes/scooters aren't dumped "wherever"; they are clustered around popular endpoints for rides, which are often also places people will want to start a ride. this can certainly be a nuisance, but it's not random. sometimes it can lead to a better distribution of vehicles than centrally planned docks.
  - microtherion 7y ago
    Here's a tweet I saw recently documenting how this actually works out in practice: https://twitter.com/Momifornia1/status/1216478009470767105 https://twitter.com/Momifornia1/status/1216478009470767105 And if you'd rather have a scientific study than anecdotal evidence, there is one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047846
- tomjakubowski 7y ago
  Yes, we should address that before we flood the sidewalks with unused scooters.
  - zapita 7y ago
    It's possible to address both in parallel... But the car storage problem should get priority over the scooter storage problem, because it's a much larger problem.
bearcobra 7y ago
There definitely needs to be infrastructure changes to catch up with the new technology, but as you've highlighted we've allocated valuable space to car parking spots instead of bike/scooters. For dense urban areas it probably makes more sense to allocate multiple parking spots per block as "dockless" parking than it does to have it taken up by a couple of cars
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  At that point though, I think it makes more sense for the city to operate them as part of a larger urban planning initiative rather than offer it as a subsidy to scooter companies. There's also no guarantee that people riding the scooters will be aware of or use dedicated dockless scooter/bike parking, hence the docks make the most sense for cities looking to optimize space usage.
  - bearcobra 7y ago
    Municipal options would be interesting, but I guess I feel like given how long we've subsidized private car ownership in North America it's fine if we subsidize scooter companies (or scooter owning individuals) instead. In the end they seem like a step in the right direction vs. cars.
  - Pxtl 7y ago
    We have an uber-based docked bike system in my city (Hamilton) and they charge a small fee for undocked parking. The vast majority of SoBi bikes are kept docked, only a handful are left undocked. That hybrid system seems to work well here. Honestly, docked "dumb" bikes were a dead-end, but smart gps-enabled bikes and e-scooters are fantastic. The problem is just that they threw out the baby with the bathwater in completely abandoning docks now that they were no longer technologically necessary. They might not be technologically necessary, but having a designated "parking spot" for these vehicles is still useful from a city-planning perspective.
Pxtl 7y ago
Maybe a hybrid system with zones? "We have docks set up every 3 blocks downtown, so you have to dock them there or we charge you an undocked fee - outside of the downtown zone you can just leave them wherever".

zapita 7y ago

If we're concerned about using up municipal land for vehicle storage, shouldn't we first address the enormous amount of street space permanently reserved for car storage?

wayoutthere 7y ago
Not disagreeing with you at all, but it's a politically sticky issue to change the status quo on. Many cities are starting to do away with it in dense areas though.
thatfrenchguy 7y ago
In most european countries, you pay for parking in cities though
gruez 7y ago
>the enormous amount of street space permanently reserved for car storage? This comparison always gets made, but at least car parking is done is officially sanctioned places, as opposed to dockerless bikes where they're dumped wherever.
- zapita 7y ago
  If we allocated as much space for scooter storage than we do for car storage, wouldn't scooter parking also be done in officially sanctioned places?
- celticninja 7y ago
  Cars are parked almost everywhere because sanctioned car parking areas are ubiquitous. There are still issues with people parking cars wherever they want, especially by the more well off who can afford the parking tickets. I see cars on sidewalks, double parked, parked in non-parking areas etc. It's just that they are a smaller percent of total cars. I expect the issue would get worse before it improved if the number of official parking spots was reduced
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  One parking space for a car could easily be repurposed to fit a dozen scooters. Some cities have been doing exactly that (https://la.streetsblog.org/2018/11/08/santa-monica-installs-in-street-e-scooter-parking-corrals/ https://la.streetsblog.org/2018/11/08/santa-monica-installs-...)
  - sp332 7y ago
    Doesn't this have exactly the downsides of docks?
    - Rebelgecko 7y ago
      Some of them. The downsides of docks it doesn't have: * You can mix scooters and bikes in the same place * You can put vehicles from different companies in the same place * Lower maintenance costs so (hopefully) would be possible to make them more ubiquitous than docks * If there's an overflowing number of scooters in a spot, you still have the option of jutting a bit into the sidewalk. Even if you never actually need to do that, knowing that it's an option will probably encourage more use. In the past I've avoided docked bike rentals because my destination only had 2 or 3 spaces left in the docks. Even though I probably would've been able to park, that low level of anxiety someone else in this thread mentioned was enough to convince me to change my plans.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  dockless bikes/scooters aren't dumped "wherever"; they are clustered around popular endpoints for rides, which are often also places people will want to start a ride. this can certainly be a nuisance, but it's not random. sometimes it can lead to a better distribution of vehicles than centrally planned docks.
- microtherion 7y ago
  Here's a tweet I saw recently documenting how this actually works out in practice: https://twitter.com/Momifornia1/status/1216478009470767105 https://twitter.com/Momifornia1/status/1216478009470767105 And if you'd rather have a scientific study than anecdotal evidence, there is one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047846
tomjakubowski 7y ago
Yes, we should address that before we flood the sidewalks with unused scooters.
- zapita 7y ago
  It's possible to address both in parallel... But the car storage problem should get priority over the scooter storage problem, because it's a much larger problem.

bearcobra 7y ago

There definitely needs to be infrastructure changes to catch up with the new technology, but as you've highlighted we've allocated valuable space to car parking spots instead of bike/scooters. For dense urban areas it probably makes more sense to allocate multiple parking spots per block as "dockless" parking than it does to have it taken up by a couple of cars

wayoutthere 7y ago
At that point though, I think it makes more sense for the city to operate them as part of a larger urban planning initiative rather than offer it as a subsidy to scooter companies. There's also no guarantee that people riding the scooters will be aware of or use dedicated dockless scooter/bike parking, hence the docks make the most sense for cities looking to optimize space usage.
- bearcobra 7y ago
  Municipal options would be interesting, but I guess I feel like given how long we've subsidized private car ownership in North America it's fine if we subsidize scooter companies (or scooter owning individuals) instead. In the end they seem like a step in the right direction vs. cars.
- Pxtl 7y ago
  We have an uber-based docked bike system in my city (Hamilton) and they charge a small fee for undocked parking. The vast majority of SoBi bikes are kept docked, only a handful are left undocked. That hybrid system seems to work well here. Honestly, docked "dumb" bikes were a dead-end, but smart gps-enabled bikes and e-scooters are fantastic. The problem is just that they threw out the baby with the bathwater in completely abandoning docks now that they were no longer technologically necessary. They might not be technologically necessary, but having a designated "parking spot" for these vehicles is still useful from a city-planning perspective.

Pxtl 7y ago

Maybe a hybrid system with zones? "We have docks set up every 3 blocks downtown, so you have to dock them there or we charge you an undocked fee - outside of the downtown zone you can just leave them wherever".