cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16133154
Link to original Tweet: https://x.com/DavidZipper/status/1795048724021862898
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16133154
Link to original Tweet: https://x.com/DavidZipper/status/1795048724021862898
Your distinctions are invalid.
My city has rental bikes that work similarly to rental escooters. Are they now bad?
People here use helmets with them, same for rental scooters, which have designated parking areas here, same as bikes.
Neither moves people away from transit. They are a last mile vehicle that people use to get to and from transit hubs, or to do short trips that would take longer to do by transit.
Not to mention that this is a stupid argument. Multimodal transit is the highest form of public transit. Only idiots want to replace all private vehicle ownership with public systems or all cars with mass transit. The greatest transit capacity is achieved when deploying all modes simultaneously.
Your distinctions are based on how something happens to be utilized around your local area, and the etiquette that has (or rather hasn’t) developed around using a given vehicle.
There is nothing about electric scooters that stops them from being used in an equally reasonable manner as any other mode of travel.
Your problem is with local norms and people. Not the vehicle type.
If the rentable bikes are just scattered throughout the city with no regard for pedestrians or traffic, then yes, they are bad.
If that doesn’t happen, then no, they are fine.
Here in Stockholm the transit authority has noticed a shift from public transport toward escooters, it seems to have stabalized for now, but that could easily change.
Our healthcare system has also noticed a big uptick in patients who has had their jaw smashed, all from escooter accidents, people have been run down and have been injured by escooter drivers, some has even died.
I am happy that it works for you, but in my experience rentable escooters is just plain dumb.