Designated parking spaces are a good idea, but they should be paid for by companies that make a profit by renting out scooters. Not taxpayers.
Public funding might be justified if the majority of scooters were owned by individual citizens with the right to vote on city affairs. Most rideshare companies, on the other hand, will simply siphon off public subsidies as additional profit to be taxed (or not) somewhere else.
But why? These are same parking spots I would park my car in.
A parking spot for cars is useful to only one person at a time, if converted to a scooter parking space with some paint it can serve vastly more people.
Straight up donating parking spaces to private scooter share companies is probably a net positive for the public.
In most urban areas, parking spaces for cars are paid for by people who actually use those spaces. If you don't pay for the space you take up, you get a ticket. The same should be true of parking spaces for scooters if we want to convert one to the other (which I think is a great idea, by the way). Urban space is valuable.
If for-profit rental companies want to reserve some space for their own customers to pick up and return scooters, they should pay the city and/or whoever owns those spaces. They shouldn't be allowed to take a free ride on public infrastructure just because they're "greener" than cars. They've been using that excuse to push externalities onto the public for too long already, I don't trust them with any additional subsidies.
In my area (Westminster, Central London) we have a plenty of free parking for residents.
Here, and in most of the country we have free parking for motorcycles.
Even the paid government owned parking spots probably don’t tend to actually be profitable.
> If for-profit rental companies want to reserve some space for their own customers to pick up and return scooters, they should pay the city and/or whoever owns those spaces
These spaces are not reserved for one specific company, they’re shared by multiple operators.
Wait, why NOT have a public good paid by taxpayers? Just have a progressive taxation system.
A system where private companies effectively own these little spots would stifle innovation and competition (ie the big players would be the only ones with a chance of succeeding) as well as individual freedom.
Parking spaces dedicated to scooters are vastly better than parking spaces dedicated to privately owner cars. A scooter parking spot will serve vastly more people than a car parking space.
Public funding might be justified if the majority of scooters were owned by individual citizens with the right to vote on city affairs. Most rideshare companies, on the other hand, will simply siphon off public subsidies as additional profit to be taxed (or not) somewhere else.