<story><title>Lime and Bird are growing rapidly</title><url>https://www.futureengine.org/articles/scooters-are-worth-10b</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cortesoft</author><text>I think the big issue that most people have with them is the large externality of having scooters littered around the sidewalk.&lt;p&gt;In a lot of places in West Los Angeles, you are having to step around them constantly if you walk down the street. People literally just drop them in the middle of the sidewalk, because there is no incentive for them to not do that.&lt;p&gt;This means that everyone who doesn&amp;#x27;t use the service has to suffer.</text></item><item><author>fourmii</author><text>These scooters and scooter companies seem pretty divisive, especially on HN. I understand they&amp;#x27;re operating in grey areas, I guess kinda like Uber before them, but they are causing (I think) positive disruption.&lt;p&gt;I personally love these scooters. I&amp;#x27;m living in Australia now where we don&amp;#x27;t have them. But last month I took a 3 week road trip from LAX to DC and back so I could hit cities I hadn&amp;#x27;t been to before. And in many of these cities, I used a Bird to get around. These scooters opened up so much more of these cities for me than I could have seen if I just walked every where.&lt;p&gt;I think they provide real value to a city, for tourists to get around, and for citizens for the last mile and to complement other forms of transport. We just need for these scooter companies to be less like Uber and actually work with the cities to come up with reasonable regulations (in particular insisting on all riders wearing helmets)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>L_Rahman</author><text>Functionally this is the easiest problem in the world to solve. It&amp;#x27;s the same solution for scooters and dockless bikeshare.&lt;p&gt;Take two parking spots in each block. Put beacons on the corners or some kind of signaling tape around the whole thing. Only let users drop off rides inside that spot. Bonus points for having non-locking racks to help organize.&lt;p&gt;People get to litter their car on the side of my road, often in the bike lane for free and everyone walks around like it&amp;#x27;s okay. It&amp;#x27;s not. Neither are the scooters on the sidewalk. We know how to solve both problems. Parking spots for dockless transit and banning cars from transit and pedestrian rich neighborhoods.&lt;p&gt;[edit] I removed a line saying I was annoyed that people kept complaining the scooter parking situation. Those complaints point out a very real problem with scooter deployments and that we have a solution for it that is difficult to get passed doesn&amp;#x27;t make the complaint less valid.</text></comment>
<story><title>Lime and Bird are growing rapidly</title><url>https://www.futureengine.org/articles/scooters-are-worth-10b</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cortesoft</author><text>I think the big issue that most people have with them is the large externality of having scooters littered around the sidewalk.&lt;p&gt;In a lot of places in West Los Angeles, you are having to step around them constantly if you walk down the street. People literally just drop them in the middle of the sidewalk, because there is no incentive for them to not do that.&lt;p&gt;This means that everyone who doesn&amp;#x27;t use the service has to suffer.</text></item><item><author>fourmii</author><text>These scooters and scooter companies seem pretty divisive, especially on HN. I understand they&amp;#x27;re operating in grey areas, I guess kinda like Uber before them, but they are causing (I think) positive disruption.&lt;p&gt;I personally love these scooters. I&amp;#x27;m living in Australia now where we don&amp;#x27;t have them. But last month I took a 3 week road trip from LAX to DC and back so I could hit cities I hadn&amp;#x27;t been to before. And in many of these cities, I used a Bird to get around. These scooters opened up so much more of these cities for me than I could have seen if I just walked every where.&lt;p&gt;I think they provide real value to a city, for tourists to get around, and for citizens for the last mile and to complement other forms of transport. We just need for these scooter companies to be less like Uber and actually work with the cities to come up with reasonable regulations (in particular insisting on all riders wearing helmets)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kerng</author><text>Maybe some parking areas for cars can be replaced in favor of scooters and bikes in certain places. Its interesting how we accept that cars are allowed to park nearly everywhere in cities. It&amp;#x27;s just normal - scooter and bikes will be a new normal also. But hopefully not in addition but instead of cars in some areas.</text></comment>