[xtqctz]

If you consider the short term rental of inexpensive scooters an important market needing laws to regulate their capacity (..by the wise and benevolent leaders of this sparkling city..), it's hard to imagine any market that would fall short of your importance threshold.

The notion that the only way to ensure competition is to forbid it is convoluted.

[eropple]

When corporate entities happily take money in exchange for their clients littering the streets with eyesores, it is a rather important problem.

Boston hasn't been overrun yet, and I am hopeful that we stay that way.

[stephengillie]

Bellevue, WA has a very unique solution. Most of their east-west avenues channel traffic to Bellevue Collection's shopping squares.

But not all. One street in either direction of Bellevue is essentially bus/pedestrian/bicycle friendly - 6th Street and 108th Ave. At their intersection is Bellevue's bus hub. 6th Ave provides bus access to the freeway, and pedestrian-only access to the Bellevue Collection.

108th has a bicycle lane wedged between car parking and the driving lane on either side, and this is where almost all of the Lime Bikes congregate. There are special painted squares, almost like Zipcar parking slots, where the bikes can usually be found. The bikes are occasionally seen outside apartments and businesses, but never for long - none have been there long enough to become a real eyesore.

[xtqctz]

The argument was that the market is important, not that the resulting behaviors of users are an important nuisance to you.

[eropple]

OK.

I care.

Wait, no, I really, really, really really don't.

Ends matter and the ends of the shitty scooter companies are awful at the human scale.

[megaremote]

Wow, you must go crazy every time you see a car, which must take up 100x the space, cause 50x the damage.

[eropple]

1) I believe urban areas--say, within half a mile of a subway stop--should be generally car-restricted to its residents, yes. (Exceptions of course exist but they can be managed; Boston has an MBTA car service for the disabled, as an example.) But no, cars don't belong where humans live.

2) As the sibling comments note, cars tend to park in observance of the law and don't go whizzing down the sidewalk while I am walking to work.

[imtringued]

How many of those are improperly parked?

[almost_usual]

cars don’t typically drive down sidewalks

[NegativeLatency]

Have you tried one? They’re actually quite handy.

[stephengillie]

If the trip is less than 5 miles, it will be cheaper than $1 to drive my hybrid car there AND back. (Assuming $3.35/gallon at 40 MPG, which is quite realistic for a pair of 5-mile trips.)

Why pay $1 for something that should cost $0.05, and would be difficult to integrate into my life? If I wanted to ride a bicycle, I'd spend the equivalent of 150 Lime rides at Target or Wally World and own my own bicycle. Why rent what you can own?

[ebikelaw]

Yes, assuming that the government massively subsidizes your driving by socializing the carbon externality and providing you with a free mandatory parking space at your origin and destination then it’s “cheaper” to drive.

[stephengillie]

The government doesn't subsidize those parking spaces; I pay for one of them in rent ($75/mo), and the other in higher prices/competition. (My workplace is in a city that mandates companies only have 80% parking, to force some employees to bus etc.)

How much do Lime and their competition pay for their parking spots? They're usually left in a sidewalk or other public walkway, using government-provided locations that were intended for a different purpose.

[eropple]

I have no need for one and I don't need to throw somebody else's brightly colored garbage onto the property of or into the streets I share with my neighbors.

[olalonde]

Have you heard of the expression "live and let live"? The level of entitlement displayed in your comments is astounding.

You feel it's reasonable to prevent everyone else from using a very cheap and convenient transportation service just because the vehicles aren't esthetically pleasing to you?

[eropple]

Who is doing the "let live" when a bunch of rental bicycles or a bunch of rental scooters are getting thrown across sidewalks or into a community pond, exactly?

In your world, it's incumbent upon me to let them shit up my town, but not incument upon them--either the users or the companies that supply them--to not shit up our town.

That's a pretty nasty world.

[olalonde]

If that really happens I agree they should be fined like any other vehicle parking illegally.

[woolvalley]

You forgot about the car eyesores, which outnumber scooter on a 20:1 scale when they were out in full force.

[billfruit]

It seems the City Govt are more worried about the eyesore of parked bikes, rather than the cheap mode of transportation enabled by these scooters, in many cases which is even affordable by the homeless. Outright banning or even capacity limitation is pretty dystopian and rent seeking from the part of the City, perhaps the City should just legislate norms for safety and fair usage.

Even if many of these scooters are improperly parked, the parking was done by the users and not the companies themselves, so holding the companies solely responsible for that dose not appear fair.