6 ms·

That's not an Atlanta thing, they are a major annoyance everywhere. The people that use them just don't give a shit.

IshKebab 4y ago
You could say the same thing about cars. In fact it's far more common for cars to be parked on pavements blocking access than it is for e-scooters. You just don't notice because you're used to it.
- smileysteve 4y ago
  A major reason that scooters were banned in Atlanta was because cars (and a bus) kept accidentally killing people on scooters.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    A bus can never kill anyone, it's public transportation and is therefore infallible. Cars are heavy killing machines remember, but busses and trains are perfectly magical and never harm pedestrians at all. (Sarcasm, for the uninitiated.)
  - Quillbert182 4y ago
    Largely because the people on scooters ignore traffic laws. I'm in an area of Atlanta where they are still allowed, and the riders regularly run stop signs and red lights without checking if a car is coming.
    - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
      Wow, they sound almost as bad as car drivers.
nathanaldensr 4y ago
Exactly, and the only people surprised by this are those who assume that everyone is perfectly ethical and empathetic, just like them.
actionablefiber 4y ago
The companies operating them seem to actively encourage users not to give a shit. They're dockless, you can end a ride anywhere, if the battery dies or you get bored you're just supposed to leave it wherever and let it be someone else's problem. The companies running them all seem content to just proliferate scooters all over the street with no regard for expense or the non-scooting public since they're all trying to out-compete each other. Here in the DC area I have a particular love for Capital Bikeshare because they're extremely affordable and (mostly) use dedicated docking stations.
- Reason077 4y ago
  Here in London they’re pretty strict about parking them in designated marked spots, not leaving them littering streets randomly. The apps will remind you repeatedly to park correctly and will fine you if you don’t, which I’m pretty sure they’re required to do as part of their licensing conditions.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Yeah, all of these problems just come down to local politics. If your city’s political class values pedestrians, they’ll make the companies liable and it’ll magically turn out that they are actually capable of enforcing where their GPS-tracked devices are parked.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      No, it's down to companies exploiting lack of regulations to get away with as little as possible ("free market"). Ideally they shouldn't be assholes, but failing that, local authorities should restrict them.
      - acdha 4y ago
        That’s just restating what I said. If the city has political will, the regulations will be enforced. Letting companies ignore the law is a policy choice. As a thought exercise, any time we see widespread lawlessness ask whether it’d still happen if, say, a random citizen could get $100 by sending a video to the city (ala NYC’s truck idling law) or if the city employees like cops or parking enforcement had similar incentives. There are downsides to that kind of thing and I’m not suggesting it as the ideal general policy but I think it is important to remember that most of the time these are not problems we don’t know how to fix but rather problems people don’t think are their job to fix.
catawbasam 4y ago
Most travel modes have a downside. For example, car and suv drivers routinely speed through pedestrian crossings and kill large numbers of pedestrians. Scooters may be annoying, but at least they aren't deadly.
- monksy 4y ago
  It may not be as deadly but it does still produce minor and major injuries that send the riders and people they run into to the ER. Please stop whitewashing incidents and the behavior of the scooterists.
  - vkou 4y ago
    Just because you've banned scooters doesn't mean the morons operating them went away, or stopped traveling. And I'd much rather deal with a moron on a scooter than a moron in a car. I'd daresay that statistics on both deaths and injuries caused by alternative modes of transportation are with me on this. I mean, I get it. Scooters are a little scary and annoying and take up space. People don't like them. All these same criticisms apply for cars, but dialed up to 11.
    - trgn 4y ago
      Damn, I wish I could upvote twice.
acdha 4y ago
It all comes down to infrastructure. They’re not a big problem here in DC compared to cars because we have wide sidewalks and a growing number of protected bike lanes. People driving cars are responsible for 100% of the fatalities, almost all of the injuries, and almost all of the blocked sidewalks, crosswalks, etc. and that’s where the focus should be. What I would like is basically rebranding bike lanes as low-speed mobility lanes. Take the parking and/or right lane full-width, put up bollards, and zone it for vehicles with a max speed of 20mph (bike, scooter, trike, hoverboard, electric wheelchair, who cares - if it doesn’t pollute and takes up about as much space as a person, it’s welcome). If space allows, add protected parking spots for pickup/drop off and handicapped parking and tell everyone else that they need to pay market-rate for parking.
- mjevans 4y ago
  Make it 3D instead of taking space from cars and I agree. Cars are dangerous and the best engineering solution is to isolate pedestrian scale speed and mass transfer from multi-ton industrial equipment. So go 3D, give cars their own isolated layer, give pedestrians and slightly faster moving exposed humans their own layer.
  - burtness 4y ago
    Wouldn't the path of least resistance here be giving cars the surface layer?
    - mjevans 4y ago
      Vehicles also include construction cranes, dump and garbage trucks, etc. Those might have unlimited height, but weight is also a factor. I'm split between an idea like Tokyo's underground mall areas (which work really well with climate control) and just over-specing several stories above ground for a platform layer that can be level across the whole city and completely free of non-emergency moving vehicles.
  - asoneth 4y ago
    This is sort of what Boston tried to do with the big dig[1], where several highways were buried under the city. It ended up costing billions and took 15 years to complete. Also, while the RFK Greenway is nice it is also regularly bisected by busy surface roads and on/off ramps so it sometimes feels more like a grassy median than a real park. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig
trgn 4y ago
The people that use them ride on the sidewalk because they will get maimed or killed by distracted or belligerent drivers if they scoot on the street. It's not the scooters that are the problem, it's a city environment that encourages aggressive and careless driving.
Sakos 4y ago
I own my own escooter and I do give a shit. Don't lump us all in together. I think people who own escooters are far more conscientious than people using rentals, and I believe a better solution is to incentivize private ownership.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

You could say the same thing about cars. In fact it's far more common for cars to be parked on pavements blocking access than it is for e-scooters. You just don't notice because you're used to it.

smileysteve 4y ago
A major reason that scooters were banned in Atlanta was because cars (and a bus) kept accidentally killing people on scooters.
- bombcar 4y ago
  A bus can never kill anyone, it's public transportation and is therefore infallible. Cars are heavy killing machines remember, but busses and trains are perfectly magical and never harm pedestrians at all. (Sarcasm, for the uninitiated.)
- Quillbert182 4y ago
  Largely because the people on scooters ignore traffic laws. I'm in an area of Atlanta where they are still allowed, and the riders regularly run stop signs and red lights without checking if a car is coming.
  - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
    Wow, they sound almost as bad as car drivers.

nathanaldensr 4y ago

Exactly, and the only people surprised by this are those who assume that everyone is perfectly ethical and empathetic, just like them.

actionablefiber 4y ago

The companies operating them seem to actively encourage users not to give a shit. They're dockless, you can end a ride anywhere, if the battery dies or you get bored you're just supposed to leave it wherever and let it be someone else's problem. The companies running them all seem content to just proliferate scooters all over the street with no regard for expense or the non-scooting public since they're all trying to out-compete each other. Here in the DC area I have a particular love for Capital Bikeshare because they're extremely affordable and (mostly) use dedicated docking stations.

Reason077 4y ago
Here in London they’re pretty strict about parking them in designated marked spots, not leaving them littering streets randomly. The apps will remind you repeatedly to park correctly and will fine you if you don’t, which I’m pretty sure they’re required to do as part of their licensing conditions.
- acdha 4y ago
  Yeah, all of these problems just come down to local politics. If your city’s political class values pedestrians, they’ll make the companies liable and it’ll magically turn out that they are actually capable of enforcing where their GPS-tracked devices are parked.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    No, it's down to companies exploiting lack of regulations to get away with as little as possible ("free market"). Ideally they shouldn't be assholes, but failing that, local authorities should restrict them.
    - acdha 4y ago
      That’s just restating what I said. If the city has political will, the regulations will be enforced. Letting companies ignore the law is a policy choice. As a thought exercise, any time we see widespread lawlessness ask whether it’d still happen if, say, a random citizen could get $100 by sending a video to the city (ala NYC’s truck idling law) or if the city employees like cops or parking enforcement had similar incentives. There are downsides to that kind of thing and I’m not suggesting it as the ideal general policy but I think it is important to remember that most of the time these are not problems we don’t know how to fix but rather problems people don’t think are their job to fix.

catawbasam 4y ago

Most travel modes have a downside. For example, car and suv drivers routinely speed through pedestrian crossings and kill large numbers of pedestrians. Scooters may be annoying, but at least they aren't deadly.

monksy 4y ago
It may not be as deadly but it does still produce minor and major injuries that send the riders and people they run into to the ER. Please stop whitewashing incidents and the behavior of the scooterists.
- vkou 4y ago
  Just because you've banned scooters doesn't mean the morons operating them went away, or stopped traveling. And I'd much rather deal with a moron on a scooter than a moron in a car. I'd daresay that statistics on both deaths and injuries caused by alternative modes of transportation are with me on this. I mean, I get it. Scooters are a little scary and annoying and take up space. People don't like them. All these same criticisms apply for cars, but dialed up to 11.
  - trgn 4y ago
    Damn, I wish I could upvote twice.

acdha 4y ago

It all comes down to infrastructure. They’re not a big problem here in DC compared to cars because we have wide sidewalks and a growing number of protected bike lanes. People driving cars are responsible for 100% of the fatalities, almost all of the injuries, and almost all of the blocked sidewalks, crosswalks, etc. and that’s where the focus should be. What I would like is basically rebranding bike lanes as low-speed mobility lanes. Take the parking and/or right lane full-width, put up bollards, and zone it for vehicles with a max speed of 20mph (bike, scooter, trike, hoverboard, electric wheelchair, who cares - if it doesn’t pollute and takes up about as much space as a person, it’s welcome). If space allows, add protected parking spots for pickup/drop off and handicapped parking and tell everyone else that they need to pay market-rate for parking.

mjevans 4y ago
Make it 3D instead of taking space from cars and I agree. Cars are dangerous and the best engineering solution is to isolate pedestrian scale speed and mass transfer from multi-ton industrial equipment. So go 3D, give cars their own isolated layer, give pedestrians and slightly faster moving exposed humans their own layer.
- burtness 4y ago
  Wouldn't the path of least resistance here be giving cars the surface layer?
  - mjevans 4y ago
    Vehicles also include construction cranes, dump and garbage trucks, etc. Those might have unlimited height, but weight is also a factor. I'm split between an idea like Tokyo's underground mall areas (which work really well with climate control) and just over-specing several stories above ground for a platform layer that can be level across the whole city and completely free of non-emergency moving vehicles.
- asoneth 4y ago
  This is sort of what Boston tried to do with the big dig[1], where several highways were buried under the city. It ended up costing billions and took 15 years to complete. Also, while the RFK Greenway is nice it is also regularly bisected by busy surface roads and on/off ramps so it sometimes feels more like a grassy median than a real park. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig

trgn 4y ago

The people that use them ride on the sidewalk because they will get maimed or killed by distracted or belligerent drivers if they scoot on the street. It's not the scooters that are the problem, it's a city environment that encourages aggressive and careless driving.

Sakos 4y ago

I own my own escooter and I do give a shit. Don't lump us all in together. I think people who own escooters are far more conscientious than people using rentals, and I believe a better solution is to incentivize private ownership.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]