Electric Scooters

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
grrdanko
Landmark Center
Posts: 229
Joined: December 21st, 2014, 3:14 pm
Location: Downtown

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby grrdanko » June 28th, 2019, 7:30 pm

Lyft Scooters rolled out in Minneapolis today.

trafficeng985
Block E
Posts: 23
Joined: May 1st, 2018, 9:06 am

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby trafficeng985 » July 22nd, 2019, 10:52 am

Spin scooters debuted in St. Louis Park today and the old folks are already flustered on Nextdoor that "kids ride these things!"

Damn kids having fun! How dare they during the summer!! Maybe don't drive your oversized SUV 40 mph in a residential neighborhood and we can all coexist...

CalMcKenney
Metrodome
Posts: 88
Joined: April 2nd, 2019, 8:54 am

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby CalMcKenney » July 22nd, 2019, 11:27 am

when are Spin scooters supposed to arrive to Minneapolis?

grrdanko
Landmark Center
Posts: 229
Joined: December 21st, 2014, 3:14 pm
Location: Downtown

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby grrdanko » July 22nd, 2019, 11:35 am

Spin scooters arrived in Minneapolis about 6 weeks ago.

CalMcKenney
Metrodome
Posts: 88
Joined: April 2nd, 2019, 8:54 am

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby CalMcKenney » July 22nd, 2019, 2:28 pm

Whoops! I meant Jump scooters, my bad.

Silophant
Moderator
Posts: 4470
Joined: June 20th, 2012, 4:33 pm
Location: Whimsical NE

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby Silophant » July 22nd, 2019, 3:07 pm

Jump/Uber dropped out apparently.
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Bob Stinson's Ghost
Landmark Center
Posts: 264
Joined: January 20th, 2018, 11:36 pm

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby Bob Stinson's Ghost » September 3rd, 2019, 1:41 pm

This looks pretty legit, it appears to be a serious attempt at analyzing lifecycle environmental impacts of dockless e-scooters:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1 ... ab2da8/pdf

If scooter trips replace walking, biking or transit, the net effect is negative, as you might expect. Short equipment lifecycle and rebalancing/charging are also problematic.

Vagueperson
Union Depot
Posts: 311
Joined: June 17th, 2014, 7:13 am
Location: Payne-Phalen, St. Paul

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby Vagueperson » September 5th, 2019, 6:19 am

I don't see scooters replacing car trips

alexschief
Wells Fargo Center
Posts: 1140
Joined: November 12th, 2015, 11:35 am
Location: Minneapolis

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby alexschief » September 5th, 2019, 8:36 am

I don't see scooters replacing car trips
Why not?

For a tourist, they often replace trips that might otherwise be taken by ride share. Why wouldn't that be the case for residents?

nordeast homer
US Bank Plaza
Posts: 717
Joined: June 1st, 2012, 11:11 am

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby nordeast homer » September 5th, 2019, 9:56 am

Scary thing is I'm seeing families on these things. Twice last week, in separate instances, I witnessed a mom (or older sibling) with 2 kids on a single scooter. In one case they ignored a red light, while traffic was moving, to cut across 4 lanes and kept moving like nothing had happened; how they weren't road kill I'll never know.

SurlyLHT
Wells Fargo Center
Posts: 1262
Joined: February 21st, 2017, 3:50 pm

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby SurlyLHT » September 5th, 2019, 10:06 am

They're definitely replacing car trips...especially Uber trips. Someone is also going to get hurt at some point. Part of it is people don't understand how to use the bicycle infrastructure and part is that it's not always convenient

xandrex
Wells Fargo Center
Posts: 1384
Joined: January 30th, 2013, 11:14 am

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby xandrex » September 5th, 2019, 11:34 am

I'm not sure it's so easy to slot scooters in as being a replacement for any single mode of transportation. At least in my experience, they're kind of in their own category.

My use cases so far:
-My once-an-hour express bus from the U skipped one of its runs. Instead of calling Uber/Lyft or waiting for a much slower regular route (after having already waited 30 minutes), I hopped on a nearby scooter and was home in 15 minutes.
-For walkable distances when I needed to get there quicker than my feet could.
-When a destination is in biking distance but where biking poses a challenge (hopping around multiple spots in the city with people who didn't bike) or where you'd work up a sweat biking.

There are certainly ways to improve the size of environmental impact these scooters have, but I really do think they're pushing us closer to a tipping point on mobility in this city.

MNdible
is great.
Posts: 5989
Joined: June 8th, 2012, 8:14 pm
Location: Minneapolis

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby MNdible » September 5th, 2019, 12:40 pm

[for the six months out of the year that they're deployed]

Vagueperson
Union Depot
Posts: 311
Joined: June 17th, 2014, 7:13 am
Location: Payne-Phalen, St. Paul

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby Vagueperson » September 12th, 2019, 10:05 pm

I don't see scooters replacing car trips
Why not?

For a tourist, they often replace trips that might otherwise be taken by ride share. Why wouldn't that be the case for residents?
I suppose this is a good point. I was thinking of privately owned cars. Still, I don't see them replacing longer distance trips, which is what I see cars mostly useful for. True, most people use cars for trips even under 1 mile.

Bob Stinson's Ghost
Landmark Center
Posts: 264
Joined: January 20th, 2018, 11:36 pm

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby Bob Stinson's Ghost » September 12th, 2019, 10:47 pm

I see about 50 people riding scooters for each one I see pedaling a green or blue Nice Ride.

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VacantLuxuries
Foshay Tower
Posts: 973
Joined: February 20th, 2015, 12:38 pm

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby VacantLuxuries » September 13th, 2019, 9:38 am

[for the six months out of the year that they're deployed]
Thats six months in which people who might otherwise be ignorant of or flippant about our current state of non-auto centric infrastructure sees the city from a similar perspective as a cyclist.

dajazz
Nicollet Mall
Posts: 176
Joined: May 12th, 2016, 8:11 am

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby dajazz » September 23rd, 2019, 2:13 pm

I was in Salt Lake over the weekend and noticed a bunch of electric Razor scooters with seats and small baskets. Didn’t even realize Razor still existed or that they were in the scooter share market but they are:

https://www.razor.com/share/

DanPatchToget
Wells Fargo Center
Posts: 1645
Joined: March 30th, 2016, 1:26 pm

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby DanPatchToget » October 26th, 2019, 11:33 am

I looked through this thread but didn't see anything, when did Bird drop out? I thought I read they were only in St. Paul and I wanted to use up the rest of my credits but now the closest city appears to be St. Louis!

Anondson
IDS Center
Posts: 4645
Joined: July 21st, 2013, 8:57 pm
Location: Where West Minneapolis Once Was

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby Anondson » October 26th, 2019, 8:58 pm

Bird wasn’t any of the initial four picked this entire year. I remember Bird tried to mount a public campaign to get in.

I seem to recall their non-selection was over not committing to locate a required percentage of scooters in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty.

kdo5581
Block E
Posts: 13
Joined: July 10th, 2017, 10:10 am

Re: Electric Scooters

Postby kdo5581 » October 31st, 2019, 10:51 am

I think Bird dropped out of St. Paul because they probably considered this area one big market and (frankly, understandably) thought it would be nonsensical to limit access to one of the two cities here (and let's be real, the less lucrative city probably).


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