
Beset by Homelessness, Rising Rents,  SF Cracks Down on Dockless Scooters - Fins
https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/26/beset-by-homelessness-rising-rents-night
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godzillabrennus
These scooters are amazing. Wish the city would focus on the drug addicts
running around defecating on sidewalks and not try to regulate these
convenient scooters.

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cbhl
We really need to organize "how to write letters in support of nice things"
sessions for techies.

It really would not take many of us (maybe fifty or a hundred) writing letters
to city hall to drown out the voices of these anti-tech activists.

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sundaeofshock
Why is this a tech issue? There are plenty of folks who work in the tech
industry who would like to see these scooter vendors take at least minimal
steps to play nice.

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ffumarola
Meanwhile, dockless cars park wherever they want, block sidewalks, inhabit
large swaths of the city without paying to do so, etc.

What a weird world where "scooters" are the problem.

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Fins
Don't cars generally park in designated locations, pay large amount of money
in taxes, often also in parking fees. Even in SF I think you are more likely
to walk into a pile of excrement or scooters in a middle of a sidewalk than
into a car...

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ffumarola
Parking fees, tolls, taxes, etc aren't market rate.

Also, visit any of the neighborhoods on the western half of San Francisco and
you'll discover that it's de facto not allowed to be handicapped or pushing a
stroller due to cars owning the sidewalks.

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Fins
Not sure how taxes could be "market rate" to begin with, but don't those
scooters just get dumped anywhere without any payments to the city or
something?

Also, just one of many reasons why I don't go to San Francisco if I can help
it at all.

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ffumarola
The taxes you're referring to, I presumed, are things like DMV fees. Those are
used for things like roads (construction, repair, salting, plowing, etc),
bridges, highway patrols, etc. They aren't market rate because they don't
actually cover their stated purpose, thus are subsidized from other taxes.
Additionally, they don't price in externalities like noise, pollution,
emergency services due to accidents, death and injury to persons, etc.

The scooters are indeed left on sidewalks. Luckily the 20 pound scooters
aren't actually killing or maiming people, spouting out toxins into the air,
ripping up the asphalt, blaring "honk" noises at all hours of the day, etc.
Not much of a public nuisance all things considered :)

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Fins
Bridges and stuff sometimes pay for themselves in increased economic activity,
as do highways etc. Not sure about SF, but in Chicago, say, on top of the
state fee for the license stickers (far more reasonable than California's, of
course, but still) there is a city fee for a city sticker that has to be
applied to all vehicles registered in the city.

Practically speaking, though, as nice as it would be to get rid of cars,
pollution, etc., it's not happening unless you can offer something better to
the public, and scooters aren't it. And scooters, at least how I am reading
news about them right, aren't exactly paying for any externalities either.

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srinivasan
As an SF resident, I love these things and regularly use them instead of
calling an Uber. Requiring helmets (as the draft regulation does) is a bad
idea; it would drastically reduce usage and push people back into cars.

One problem that some of these scooters have is that they seem to be easy to
sabotage. I’ve seen vandals pulling on the brake cables near the front wheel,
which would probably weaken the brakes or make them not function.

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physcab
Good. I’m all for better and more eco-friendly forms of transport, but after
seeing a number of scooters thrown into the street haphazardly, this could not
make me happier. People don’t seem to respect property that isn’t theirs.

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matte_black
Respect isn’t necessary. You paid for it, had your way with it, and moved on.
This isn’t charity, it’s business. If the owner has a problem with how the
scooters are used they should be using docks.

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namlem
The sidewalk belongs to everyone. It's a public space.

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ffumarola
+1, wish they would start towing cars that park on the sidewalk.

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swang
_you can only fix one of these things!_

seriously the reason scooters were addressed was because 3 companies decided
to dump all of them sometime near the end of march and they had no legislation
against it. and it was causing problems with pedestrians.

i find these articles annoying, why not harass midwestern cities with large
opioid problems about doing X, when they haven't "solved" the opioid issue
first.

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modbait
Vehicles on sidewalks are a menace. Do it in the street, hipsters!

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toephu2
Poop and needles are not a menace?

Personally I think poop & noodle cleanup should be a higher priority than
dockless scooters.

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modbait
By all means, hipsters should also police up their poop and needles. But given
the choice, I'd rather deal with that--at least it isn't usually moving toward
me at high speed.

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fffernan
Can we add "roads worse than 3rd world countries" to the list?

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ganeshkrishnan
You haven't seen third world countries' roads, have you?

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cft
I have: I just drove from SF to Merida, Yucatan. San Francisco's roads are on
par or often worse that most Mexican state capitals.

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JustSomeNobody
Because you can only focus on fixing one thing at a time?

