Electric scooters leaving San Diego
 

Dockless scooter giant, Lime, is leaving San Diego

"Lime, which was the first e-scooter operator to launch in San Diego in early 2018, is pulling all 4,500 of its scooters from the city, starting January 9. They will join Uber’s Jump and San Francisco-based Skip, which both recently exited San Diego complaining about city regulations."

My 2¢:

Short sighted NIMBYs are killing off a great idea. Electric scooters are one of the most efficient methods of short distance commuting for individuals. They help to relieve congestion in downtown and dense urban cores. They can be used in pre-existing bike lanes, resulting in no new infrastructure to be built and taking commuters off of clogged streets into bike lanes and pathways.
The surface area that a commuter requires on a scooter vs. a Lyft or Uber is multitudes less.
Cities are doing the community a huge disservice by killing off electric scooters and bicycle transportation. The alternative option is to drive or take a ride sharing service to your destination, contributing to CO2 emissions and traffic congestion.

San Diego is the perfect climate for scooter transportation. All I can say is BOOOOO!!!

I was in SD last year and those things were strewn EVERYWHERE especially around the Gaslamp area . If I were a local, it would get old seeing that shit just dumped wherever. At least with the bike stations, they have to be put back.

I agree completely. I use them daily and I love it. Any time I need to go more than 1/2 a mile and don't feel like walking, I jump on

The problem with e-scooters is the demographic that mainly uses them. It's young people and especially males. And it has no regard for either consideration of others or laws (which in this case are hardly enforced).

E-scooters ARE potentially a good way to get people around downtowns. But they are a hazard and a pain if left hither and yon. Cities need to do the obvious thing and designate places to park them--not expensive and limited docking stations as with some bicycles but just painted outlines on sidewalks or curb spaces that are not in anyone's way or blocking anything.

And the other issue is where they are ridden which too often is on sidewalks. Most cities today are adding bike lanes everywhere and THAT's where these things should be ridden if they exist. Where special lanes don't exist, they should be ridden in the street. NEVER on sidewalks which, right now, is where they are ridden more often than not in San Francisco (which is where I have experience with them).

If advocates could solve those 2 issues--where they are ridden and where they are left when not being ridden--all could be well and they could be a big plus for cities. But I don't think those issues will be solved because I don't think enough riders give a d*mn and for reasons I'll never understand, there probably will never be enforcement like there is for motorized vehicles.

I give every one I have to step over a good stomp or kick and hope I break something on it. When they are attached to stair railings or otherwise obstructing the way of disabled or just older folks who need to be able to use such things, I give them a double stomp.

Lime is leaving San Antonio as well.

https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2020...f-san-antonio/


By the way, apparently LIME never even told San Antonio they were going to rent scooters here. The scooters just appeared all over downtown and adjacent areas one day.

https://www.expressnews.com/news/loc...r-14935326.php

These scooter exits might have more to do with viability of the business model than NIMBYism. Other mobility startups are having issues too. ReachNow/Car2Go quietly announced that they are completely pulling out of North America and London next month.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/18/...er-cities-date

Honestly, millennials just need enough money to buy their own scooters and this problem will be solved.

i haven't been to sd since the scooter era, but if what you are saying is anything like the scooter pigsty chaos that is venice, ca., then i agree with you -- no thanks.

a shame because it is a perfect place for them theoretically. :shrug:

I feel the same seeing cars strewn everywhere, all along the streets and sidewalks. They're incredibly dangerous, the operators have no disregard for pedestrian safety, and just leave them lying around the streets.

Meh. I personally have a grudge against electric scooters because I have fallen from them TWICE and really scraped myself up both times. Probably a combination of me being clumsy plus crappy uneven streets I was riding them on but they can be super dangerous since most people riding them don't use head protection, you're going up to 20 mph and they have such a low center of gravity that it's pretty easy to fall over. Plus, a lot of times they are not parked responsibly and become obstacles in sidewalks and streets that people easily trip over.

They're a great idea but there's still a lot of progress to be made as to how cities should handle them so they aren't such a nuisance and are safer to ride on (better bike lanes anyone??)

I don't recall seeing a Toyota Camry left in the middle of a park. Or in the middle of a sidewalk. Unfortunately, cars are parked along the street. I did see that with those Lime scooters and bikes. People tend to have a dismiss attitude about things that don't belong to them and don't care how they treat things they rent or borrow. And these companies make so much money on them, they don't care if their users trash them.

Scooters haven’t been as efficient as bike sharing. Scooters have been a disaster for Austin and San Antonio. Fortunately, Houston doesn’t have them and have stuck to the more efficient bike sharing, which works because they have stations to dock at.

I more agree with you than the anti-scooter crowd. Especially for a place like SD with multiple tourist areas.

All they need is a little positive organization and compromise.

For instance.... we have used Bird scooters in Pacific Beach or PB as the locals call it, in Balboa Park, and in downtown along the waterfront.

We noticed on the waterfront that Bird had already created zones where you had to park the scooters. You could not disengage the scooters (and charges) until you parked in a designated zone. This eliminates the number one compliant. Complaint number two about people buzzing too fast around them. In other zones the scooter speeds are automatically throttled back to like 6mph and once you leave that zone the speed ramps up to normal.

We first rode them around UCLA in Westwood and the electric bikes are little used in comparison to the scooters. I do like the little mini-elec bikes though, those weren't bad.

My sister is an ER nurse in D.C. and she sees a ton of scooter related injuries. The scooters that aren't the problem, but the idiot users who think they own the road and/or don't follow basic traffic patterns or simply have poor genetics in that they exhibit poor mental judgement and do silly things that end up resulting in a head fracture.

So in layman's terms, a scooter will not win against a truck. Its just basic Newtonian mechanics. Might also help to watch for pedestrians when on a side walk.

i noticed the e-scooters were much more orderly held up in santa monica than the chaos just to the south that is venice. so it can be done. i think the problem is a matter of scale though. a major city is a more challenging to manage than a small suburb.

hopefully the handling of scooters will work itself out in time because its a good idea. maybe big cities should wait a bit and let the burbs take this on until more is learned? :shrug:

This post demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of an on-demand service.

The chief purpose of an on-demand scooter service to limit the gene pool.

Here in Denver, they aren't too bad in terms of being strewn everywhere, but we do have a few companies here. I personally enjoy using them as it's a convenient alternative to getting from my place to our transit hub, or to meet up with someone. I thought about buying one myself, but my issue is I like the convenience of not having to haul it around with me where I go. You just dock it and leave. If you own one, you have to haul it with you wherever you go, which can get old after a while (outside of normal home-to-work commuting). Unfortunately, I could see the companies continuing to shrink their presence as, as another posted, the business model is causing money losses for these companies.

docks seem like a good idea for them. maybe like bikes there is a way to charge people $$$ if they are not left where they are supposed to be left? :tup: :shrug: