7 ms·

Shared e-bikes and e-scooters are some of the most environmentally friendly transportation options in existence; they cause something like orders of magnitude l

by seoaeu 5y ago

Shared e-bikes and e-scooters are some of the most environmentally friendly transportation options in existence; they cause something like orders of magnitude lower emissions than personal automobiles. Framing them as "worse for the environment" by using a dubious baseline, really isn't productive

saurik 5y ago
(I am concentrating on scooters as I know a lot about them. I know much less about bikes, but you are asserting they are both great so I get to concentrate on either.) You are literally throwing an opinion at a pile of data :(. This isn't a "framing" issue--some narrative you can just throw out--this is an actual study that is claiming the exact opposite of what you are asserting. The biggest issue you are missing--which, FWIW, isn't new from this article: we also knew this years ago, though the analyses were less formal--is that these scooters don't actually replace "personal automobiles". Now, you might claim "well they do for me", but you are in sufficient minority of people that you just don't matter. As this very study directly shows, these shared scooters mostly replace trips people would have walked or bicycled, not driven (in either a personal or shared vehicle). The core problem with them is that the majority of trips people use in personal automobiles are for shopping and commuting, and the shared scooter programs don't solve shopping use cases at all and have only minimal impact on commuting (due to a combination of the distance the majority of commuters--weighted by their miles commuted, which is actually critical even if it sounds circular--are commuting combined with the extreme clockwork certainty they require in being able to reliably find a nearby scooter even at short distances). It gets a lot worse for the scooters also--which this study does seem to be factoring in--because they tend to be somewhat "disposable" in a way you might not expect or appreciate given the battery they require: they are left outside constantly and as a public goods issue tend to get treated very poorly and even directly destroyed. In my community, they seriously end up in the ocean, due to a combination of people leaving them on the beach or even directly throwing them in. (In our local community, the scooters mattered so little to the scooter company that when they were impounded by the police for various reasons the companies wouldn't even bother coming to pick them up; the local police were freaking out about what to do with the giant pile of scooters they were accumulating ;P.) They also have to be collected and dragged back to electricity to charge, and then re-balanced across the city. This tends to get done in inefficient ways by random people doing "gig economy" work, and those vehicle trips--which were mostly done using low fuel efficiency trucks--to pick up and move the scooters after every handful of uses has to be taken into consideration. The reality is then that people who go around insisting that these scooters get deployed everywhere are just making the environment worse: they are making very little impact on car trips while more than compensating for their benefit in production/waste, charging/rebalancing trips, and reduced usage of actually green transportation (such as bicycles).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cplusplusfellow 5y ago
  While most of what you have stated I can find myself agreeing with, I am also an avid fan of scooters. If you realistically want people to avoid having cars, you’re going to need to make the prospects of transit without a car (whether they would have walked or biked or driven) much more palatable. Scooters do this. They are more convenient for the trips you otherwise would have walked (faster, easier, less sweaty) or biked (a lot more work to lug the bike up and down the apartment block stairs and find a place to lock it and hope it’s not vandalized when you return).
cammikebrown 5y ago
It reminds me of the recent articles saying “is this crazy weather climate change, or not?” as if we shouldn’t direct all of our resources into slowing the destruction of the planet.
gedy 5y ago
I've heard the most flack about shared e-scooters from transit and/or bike activists, likely "perfect is the enemy of good" situation.
haroldp 5y ago
Exactly. Shared bikes don't replace owned bikes. They replace cars.
- CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
  Except that according this study they don't. >Substitution patterns reveal that personal e-scooters and e-bikes emit less CO2 than the transport modes they replace, while shared e-scooters and e-bikes emit more CO2 than the transport modes they replace.
  - quadrangle 5y ago
    The study says that they haven't. It doesn't make claims about what the future will be. "They don't" is too timeless a claim.
- kelnos 5y ago
  The article claims that's not the case. Ebikes predominantly replace walking or using a non-e-bike, or just not making the trip entirely. I won't comment on how correct the study is, as I don't know, but if it's correct, that is a worse outcome, at least environmentally. I would argue it's a better outcome for people, since they are taking trips that they want to take, but couldn't previously, or are taking trips in greater comfort and with greater speed than previously. That sounds like a win, and I'm not at all bothered by any environmental trade off there; it's not like it's putting more cars on the road.
vmception 5y ago
The study isn’t saying that they arent. Its saying that the users of shared e-bikes and e-scooters were previously: walking using a non-motorized bike or not making the trip at all. They werent using public transportation, rideshares or cars to begin with, so it isnt reducing them. Thats the full extent of the study and it quantified that. So therefore, worse.
- epolanski 5y ago
  I kinda believe that. Indeed if I think of my escooter usage it always occurred to save me from walking or taking public transport. It hardly if ever replaced my car usage.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > They werent using public transportation, rideshares or cars to begin with, so it isnt reducing them That seems counter-intuitive. If I had to get somewhere not served by public transport, I would simply drive there. Having a conveinient way to get an e-bike once I get to the closest transit stop is the thing that would make me consider not taking the car. Did these guys get public funding for this?
  - vmception 5y ago
    The study has percentages of what people did what, multiple cities, multiple sample sizes, multiple breakdowns of population. Some were using cars and public transportation. More weren't. I skimmed the article and I commented.
- grayfaced 5y ago
  Then study is doing a bogus comparison then. All forms of transportation are bad for environment when the alternative is people are forced to stay home.
  - vmception 5y ago
    haha ding ding ding well the study wasn't making an opinion about it and just posted the results of their finding
908B64B197 5y ago
Not only that but they help make public transit a viable option for more people since it solves the last mile problem at the destination. Not sure what's the solution otherwise.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
It's not dubious, it's factual and interesting, bearing in mind that the study was conducted in Zurich, which has very good public transport and is quite walkable. If shared e-scooters mostly replace walking then the comparison with cars is not relevant and indeed they result in increased use of resources and energy.
danny_codes 5y ago
Seriously. An E-Bike weighs what, 50lb? VS a car which weighs 2000lbs. T

by seoaeu 5y ago

saurik 5y ago

(I am concentrating on scooters as I know a lot about them. I know much less about bikes, but you are asserting they are both great so I get to concentrate on either.) You are literally throwing an opinion at a pile of data :(. This isn't a "framing" issue--some narrative you can just throw out--this is an actual study that is claiming the exact opposite of what you are asserting. The biggest issue you are missing--which, FWIW, isn't new from this article: we also knew this years ago, though the analyses were less formal--is that these scooters don't actually replace "personal automobiles". Now, you might claim "well they do for me", but you are in sufficient minority of people that you just don't matter. As this very study directly shows, these shared scooters mostly replace trips people would have walked or bicycled, not driven (in either a personal or shared vehicle). The core problem with them is that the majority of trips people use in personal automobiles are for shopping and commuting, and the shared scooter programs don't solve shopping use cases at all and have only minimal impact on commuting (due to a combination of the distance the majority of commuters--weighted by their miles commuted, which is actually critical even if it sounds circular--are commuting combined with the extreme clockwork certainty they require in being able to reliably find a nearby scooter even at short distances). It gets a lot worse for the scooters also--which this study does seem to be factoring in--because they tend to be somewhat "disposable" in a way you might not expect or appreciate given the battery they require: they are left outside constantly and as a public goods issue tend to get treated very poorly and even directly destroyed. In my community, they seriously end up in the ocean, due to a combination of people leaving them on the beach or even directly throwing them in. (In our local community, the scooters mattered so little to the scooter company that when they were impounded by the police for various reasons the companies wouldn't even bother coming to pick them up; the local police were freaking out about what to do with the giant pile of scooters they were accumulating ;P.) They also have to be collected and dragged back to electricity to charge, and then re-balanced across the city. This tends to get done in inefficient ways by random people doing "gig economy" work, and those vehicle trips--which were mostly done using low fuel efficiency trucks--to pick up and move the scooters after every handful of uses has to be taken into consideration. The reality is then that people who go around insisting that these scooters get deployed everywhere are just making the environment worse: they are making very little impact on car trips while more than compensating for their benefit in production/waste, charging/rebalancing trips, and reduced usage of actually green transportation (such as bicycles).

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cplusplusfellow 5y ago
While most of what you have stated I can find myself agreeing with, I am also an avid fan of scooters. If you realistically want people to avoid having cars, you’re going to need to make the prospects of transit without a car (whether they would have walked or biked or driven) much more palatable. Scooters do this. They are more convenient for the trips you otherwise would have walked (faster, easier, less sweaty) or biked (a lot more work to lug the bike up and down the apartment block stairs and find a place to lock it and hope it’s not vandalized when you return).

cammikebrown 5y ago

It reminds me of the recent articles saying “is this crazy weather climate change, or not?” as if we shouldn’t direct all of our resources into slowing the destruction of the planet.

gedy 5y ago

I've heard the most flack about shared e-scooters from transit and/or bike activists, likely "perfect is the enemy of good" situation.

haroldp 5y ago

Exactly. Shared bikes don't replace owned bikes. They replace cars.

CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
Except that according this study they don't. >Substitution patterns reveal that personal e-scooters and e-bikes emit less CO2 than the transport modes they replace, while shared e-scooters and e-bikes emit more CO2 than the transport modes they replace.
- quadrangle 5y ago
  The study says that they haven't. It doesn't make claims about what the future will be. "They don't" is too timeless a claim.
kelnos 5y ago
The article claims that's not the case. Ebikes predominantly replace walking or using a non-e-bike, or just not making the trip entirely. I won't comment on how correct the study is, as I don't know, but if it's correct, that is a worse outcome, at least environmentally. I would argue it's a better outcome for people, since they are taking trips that they want to take, but couldn't previously, or are taking trips in greater comfort and with greater speed than previously. That sounds like a win, and I'm not at all bothered by any environmental trade off there; it's not like it's putting more cars on the road.

vmception 5y ago

The study isn’t saying that they arent. Its saying that the users of shared e-bikes and e-scooters were previously: walking using a non-motorized bike or not making the trip at all. They werent using public transportation, rideshares or cars to begin with, so it isnt reducing them. Thats the full extent of the study and it quantified that. So therefore, worse.

epolanski 5y ago
I kinda believe that. Indeed if I think of my escooter usage it always occurred to save me from walking or taking public transport. It hardly if ever replaced my car usage.
908B64B197 5y ago
> They werent using public transportation, rideshares or cars to begin with, so it isnt reducing them That seems counter-intuitive. If I had to get somewhere not served by public transport, I would simply drive there. Having a conveinient way to get an e-bike once I get to the closest transit stop is the thing that would make me consider not taking the car. Did these guys get public funding for this?
- vmception 5y ago
  The study has percentages of what people did what, multiple cities, multiple sample sizes, multiple breakdowns of population. Some were using cars and public transportation. More weren't. I skimmed the article and I commented.
grayfaced 5y ago
Then study is doing a bogus comparison then. All forms of transportation are bad for environment when the alternative is people are forced to stay home.
- vmception 5y ago
  haha ding ding ding well the study wasn't making an opinion about it and just posted the results of their finding

908B64B197 5y ago

Not only that but they help make public transit a viable option for more people since it solves the last mile problem at the destination. Not sure what's the solution otherwise.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

It's not dubious, it's factual and interesting, bearing in mind that the study was conducted in Zurich, which has very good public transport and is quite walkable. If shared e-scooters mostly replace walking then the comparison with cars is not relevant and indeed they result in increased use of resources and energy.

danny_codes 5y ago

Seriously. An E-Bike weighs what, 50lb? VS a car which weighs 2000lbs. T