It's makes urban sidewalks look like they are strewn with litter. It's the reason why Im glad to see they are banned. They make walkable cities less walkable.
The civil engineers in downtown santa monica have engineered a brilliant solution: stencil a scooter and box on the sidewalk. This is some serious space grade stuff considering JPL isn't too far away, unsure if we have the engineering capabilities to apply this solution in other cities. Better ban them outright, right?
In all seriousness, the apps let cities geofence arbitrary areas. You could just spray paint an orderly and designated parking spot on the corner and have the app only let you lock up if you are parked in the designated parking spot, validated with the photo you take after the ride.
I agree there is probably a solution for this, but these companies could have discussed this with the cities prior to dumping thousands of discarded scooters everywhere. It's being a bad neighbor to force the city to deal with a problem it didnt have last week because you have VC funding and dont mind littering. So yes, Id rather ban them and subsequently address the issue.
That's like any technology, it appears then you regulate bad behavior. Parking enforcement didn't appear before cars were invented and were suddenly parking on every free surface with no order or logic, getting in the way of pedestrians.
Littering was already against the law in most cities. But it didnt take crazy foresight for these companies to see would be problematic but, personally, I feel greed just got in the way. Move fast, break things, break laws, ask for forgiveness later.
Bird et al were dead-set on bad behavior from the start. Santa Monica had to sue them to get them to register as a business in the city so that they could even begin to be regulated. They decided they could operate a business in the public space and flood the streets with scooters without any permits/approval.
Do you get a pass for doing something anti-social because you are a corporation?
Not just strewn with litter, but also more dangerous for pedestrians because many scooter riders use the sidewalks as full-speed slalom courses. If scooters have designated parking spaces and designated non-sidewalk rideable areas/lanes they are great. Most places do not have these things yet and enforcing them takes a lot of the convenience factor away from the platform as well.
This is a myopic view. In my city's experience, when infrastructure like parking corrals are provided scooter users tend to behave properly. When there's nowhere to leave your scooter except to balance them in a 5-inch space parallel to the curb, they become disruptive. The solution is to reallocate a minimal quantity of the vast space in our cities we currently designate for the exclusive use of automobiles, not to punish those who chose not to occupy 300+sf of space with their two-ton vehicles.
It's not shortsighted but definitely an opinion formed relative to my opinion and observations. But that's what all comments are. That solution might work in your city, but each of these scooter riders did not take one car off the street so it likely will not work in most cities. I agree there is a solution but don't feel well ever find one in discussion on HN, a much to biased audience.
In all seriousness, the apps let cities geofence arbitrary areas. You could just spray paint an orderly and designated parking spot on the corner and have the app only let you lock up if you are parked in the designated parking spot, validated with the photo you take after the ride.