[lazerwalker]

If a specific implementation of a bikeshare or scooter share program is borderline useless because the hardware is junk, that sounds like an implementation detail rather than the sort of philosophical argument you seem to be making.

I've been in cities where the bikeshare was borderline useless. I've also spent lots of time in NY, where its bikeshare is both at least as useful as the subway within Manhattan and legitimately the fastest way to get e.g. north or south within Brooklyn.

I'm currently based in Berlin, where I agree with the parent to your comment. Berlin's metro is generally great, but there are a large number of places I go to regularly that are ~10 minutes away by bike but ~30 minutes by public transit, purely because of the way the system is laid out.

If you're going to complain about bikes or scooters cluttering up sidewalks, perhaps the answer is they should have dedicated space on the streets (as with docked bikeshare programs like NY). I'd love to see studies about the effect on number of transportation trips that e.g. a dedicated scooter stand the size of a car parking space has on the flow of traffic as compared to letting that single parking space be usable by cars.

I totally get your point that this is something that should be handled at the civic planning level rather than at SV-funded startups. Copenhagen is probably the clearest example where the city government was able to make massive improvements to the way people move around their city, encouraging non-car transit. That doesn't change that bikes and scooters are arguably a more effective way to move individuals than cars (either private ownership or rideshare), and a shared system has transportation benefits that are unique from the benefits offered by traditional public transit.

[CaptainZapp]

Interesting reply. And I agree with a lot of your points. Starting from the premise that cars are not really a good mode of transportation to get around in a city.

It would be awesome to massively reduce private car use in cities and use the space gained for other modes of transportation and uses (bike, scooter, walking, leisurly get togethers of the neighborhood) and reclaim the space for actually useful things and efficient transportation.

One of my current issues with the scooters (apart from the philosophical objections, which you correctly point out) is that they zip around pavements with speeds, which are definitly uncomfortable (and depending on the riding style menacing) to the actual users of pavements, which are pedestrians. Being able to provide dedicated space for scooters would be a huge leap forward for their use.

I'm privileged enough to have Zurich's public transport system at my disposal, which literally gets you everywhere in 10 minute intervals and that this slightly skews my perspective (Tokyo is also pretty awesome, but I digress). But I do believe that such shifts in policy should be debated and planned and not just brute forced by some outsiders, whose main interest is profit and certainly not the best interest and well being of the citizenship they claim to serve.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.