One idea is to put a deposit fee on the scooter, like Michigan has for bottles and cans. Therefore, the choice of whether to dump the scooter or return it is ju

One idea is to put a deposit fee on the scooter, like Michigan has for bottles and cans. Therefore, the choice of whether to dump the scooter or return it is just based on your willingness to pay. Meanwhile, collecting and returning scooters could be a source of some cash income for folks who are otherwise hard to employ. I believe the main reason for the dumped scooters in cities that had them, was that the scooters were an investment boondoggle. It was easier to create fake growth by converting investment money into new scooters, than to actually figure out how to make it work. I live in a mid sized city (about 250k in US midwest) and a network of bike routes evolved largely on its own, with a bit of help from the city and county. Cars prefer the fast roads, bikes take the slow roads. The speed limit (35 mph ~ 60 kph) is high enough to make up for time lost at stoplights, but of no benefit to cyclists. Instead, we find our way through the narrower neighborhood streets that have relatively little traffic. That works everywhere except some peculiar intersections, and the dense central district. In those places, the city is creating separated bike lanes when they have to rebuild the roadway anyway. And a number of old rail lines have been turned into bike paths -- too bad for trains but great for bikes. Destruction of roads by the freeze-thaw cycle gives us a chance to renew our urban planning ideas every few years!