Bird Scooters in your city

[cmg]

Has your city been invaded by the electric "Bird" scooters? they're all over SA and Austin. looks like fun. at .15 a minute ($10 an hour) seems like a better solution than the rent a bike that's also here.

[stev0]

invaded is the right word. they might be great in theory, but certainly not in execution. I'm sure others will chime in here, as there's been plenty of discussion about bird scooters already, but they've become a total nuisance and safety hazard. in LA/Santa Monica there are literally thousands of them. (San Francisco and Santa Monica have already passed regulations restricting Birds and LA is working on it as well)

so many issues. people ditch these things on the road, across bike paths and trails, (in the creeks). a lot of users don't know how to ride them, so people quite frequently fall off and get injured (or can't properly control them and run into pedestrians, like i saw yesterday). many bird riders ignore the traffic laws (dont stop for lights, ride on sidewalks, ride against traffic in the bike lane, cut across streets). and apparently there's quite a vicious culture among the independent contractors that gather and charge these things as well. They're popular with the bar crowd in the main street type areas, which just fuels the fire by adding alcohol to the mix.

Flexible and available transportation at a lower price point than rideshare/taxi, and more useful than public transit in a lot of cases. I love the idea, but it looks like its implementation has been net negative. Has made my day to day as a cyclist/pedestrian/driver much more hazardous. started out thinking they were a good thing, but the needle has been moving steadily away from that direction. pretty firmly in the "better off without em" camp now.

[FlashUNC]

I made sure to knock any I saw into the street here in SF when they showed up ealrier this year. Idiotic garbage.

[Ken Robb]

In some areas they are VERY popular with drunks who think they don't have to worry about crashing or getting a DUI while riding a scooter.

[notsew]

Originally Posted by Ken Robb

In some areas they are VERY popular with drunks who think they don't have to worry about crashing or getting a DUI while riding a scooter.

Well at the very least they probably won't do as much damage

Also, I was talking to someone who knew a little bit about these and other newer bike shares and apparently many of them are hoping to make money be targeted advertising. I couldn't get from him how exactly that would work, but its interesting - though maybe just hearsay. So, like everything else in life these days, you are the product.

[arimajol]

They just showed up in Milwaukee a few weeks ago. The city has made it illegal to ride them and have a court case against the company pending. Meanwhile, they are laying around on sidewalks.

[jumphigher]

I read about these in another recent Paceline thread. They definitely sound like a disaster. I'm wondering if the people making them will try to get them ensconced into every US city. And will they be showing up here in Richmond, shortly?

[cmg]

they haven't become a nuance in SA yet. I would think that the city would back charge the company for having to regulate their drop off, having to gather them up in controlled areas. When they first showed the company didn't even notify the city they just dropped off a hundred or so downtown then the city made them pick them up and negotiated conditions for there use. I suspect given time they will disrupt the low ridership of the local city bus service.

[ptourkin]

Tons of them here in San Diego. Great in my neighborhood. Some people act stupid on them. More people are stupid in cars. Some people complain that they are parked all over the place. Cars are parked all over the place too and take up a lot more space. New things are scary. It will work itself out.

I have noticed that more scooters have rolled out and the dockless bikes are decreasing in the same proportion. The scooters are more popular. They are reducing vehicle trips and while they may have some problems, many of them are overstated and getting cars off the road is good.

[cachagua]

Anybody see the article about the "bird hunters" who round them up and recharge them overnight? Bird pays you by the piece to go find them, bring them back home, put them on a charger, and then take them out to a drop-off point in the morning.

(The perfect gig! Do this 9 to midnight, then when you've dropped them off, get your side hustle on and Uber all day!)

Predictably, individuals are trying to collect them early, to establish turf and exclude other hunters, acting dangerously in traffic to get as many as possible, and generally pirate the system.

[benadrian]

Originally Posted by stev0

they might be great in theory, but certainly not in execution.

so many issues. people ditch these things on the road, across bike paths and trails, (in the creeks). a lot of users don't know how to ride them, so people quite frequently fall off and get injured (or can't properly control them and run into pedestrians, like i saw yesterday). many bird riders ignore the traffic laws (dont stop for lights, ride on sidewalks, ride against traffic in the bike lane, cut across streets).

Flexible and available transportation at a lower price point than rideshare/taxi, and more useful than public transit in a lot of cases. I love the idea, but it looks like its implementation has been net negative.

So, a great idea except for the humans involved? That's kind of my thought. I generally like anything that gets people out of cars an onto slower, smaller vehicles. However, if I lived in a Bird ground zero area, I'd probably get pretty annoyed when they ended up broken and in front of my house.

I was in Florence, IT a little more than a month ago, and the wife an I use the Mobike dock-less bike share all the time. It was a bit annoying at times, but for the most part it was pretty great. They have some encouraged parking area and some no parking areas. You can leave them anywhere, but if you leave the bikes in a parking area, you get a discount, and if you leave it in a no parking area, you get a small fine. I've never used Bird. Do they have any incentives for good behavior or discouragement for bad behavior?

[SoCalSteve]

Originally Posted by stev0

invaded is the right word. they might be great in theory, but certainly not in execution. I'm sure others will chime in here, as there's been plenty of discussion about bird scooters already, but they've become a total nuisance and safety hazard. in LA/Santa Monica there are literally thousands of them. (San Francisco and Santa Monica have already passed regulations restricting Birds and LA is working on it as well)

so many issues. people ditch these things on the road, across bike paths and trails, (in the creeks). a lot of users don't know how to ride them, so people quite frequently fall off and get injured (or can't properly control them and run into pedestrians, like i saw yesterday). many bird riders ignore the traffic laws (dont stop for lights, ride on sidewalks, ride against traffic in the bike lane, cut across streets). and apparently there's quite a vicious culture among the independent contractors that gather and charge these things as well. They're popular with the bar crowd in the main street type areas, which just fuels the fire by adding alcohol to the mix.

Flexible and available transportation at a lower price point than rideshare/taxi, and more useful than public transit in a lot of cases. I love the idea, but it looks like its implementation has been net negative. Has made my day to day as a cyclist/pedestrian/driver much more hazardous. started out thinking they were a good thing, but the needle has been moving steadily away from that direction. pretty firmly in the "better off without em" camp now.

Very well said!

Since I live in a very touristy area, this summer is shaping up to be really crazy with them.

Oh, the worst is when you see a father and his kid sharing one with no helmets. How fricken stupid is that????

[VonTrapp]

Originally Posted by cachagua

Anybody see the article about the "bird hunters" who round them up and recharge them overnight? Bird pays you by the piece to go find them, bring them back home, put them on a charger, and then take them out to a drop-off point in the morning.

(The perfect gig! Do this 9 to midnight, then when you've dropped them off, get your side hustle on and Uber all day!)

Predictably, individuals are trying to collect them early, to establish turf and exclude other hunters, acting dangerously in traffic to get as many as possible, and generally pirate the system.

Yup. Pickup truck. Running gas generator in the bed of the truck. Guy staring at phone and zipping and zooming and randomly parking all over my neighborhood.

But, in the last month since school’s been out, I’ve see a lot of teens on them (hey... it’s an activity outside, away from a screen), and a mix of commuters/curious adults seeing if its a fit for them.

But I’ve also seen people pick them up and throw them in our Lake Merrit like they are competing for a gold medal in distance and splash.

I don’t know 🤷🏻*♂️.

[SoCalSteve]

Originally Posted by VonTrapp

Yup. Pickup truck. Running gas generator in the bed of the truck. Guy staring at phone and zipping and zooming and randomly parking all over my neighborhood.

But, in the last month since school’s been out, I’ve see a lot of teens on them (hey... it’s an activity outside, away from a screen), and a mix of commuters/curious adults seeing if its a fit for them.

But I’ve also seen people pick them up and throw them in our Lake Merrit like they are competing for a gold medal in distance and splash.

I don’t know ������������*♂️.

Turns out you must be 18 or older to ride them.

https://www.bird.co/agreement

[C40_guy]

I tried using these in Santa Monica one evening. By evening, many, perhaps most are dead. Very frustrating...I started four rides and had to ditch each one as it died. Never got more than a couple of hundred yards on them.

Some of it was due to my learning curve. You can figure out whether a particular one is charged...but it's not intuitive to the new comer (and I'm pretty tech savvy).

I got $8 in promotion codes from Lime...but expect that they will expire before I can (or want to) use them...