
Electric scooter companies will require permits in San Francisco - coloneltcb
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/17/electric-scooter-permits-will-be-required-in-san-francisco/
======
joshe
SF is doing a reasonable job, they should be commended for not coming down
hard on the scooters.

The "tech companies are privatizing the streets" meme doesn't make sense. Any
scooters are less objectionable than the private cars that killed 14
pedestrians last year. Delivery vans are corporations taking up space on the
street. The street has benches, planters, parked bikes, phone boxes, mail
boxes, and 20 other "private" things. The public street is for shared use by
everyone, not a commercial free zone of only charming activities.

The whole thing is pretty wild. For example the scooters are all unlocked, the
app just turns on the electric motor. That seems crazy to me, every kid in the
city is going to borrow them. And I've seen a bunch of homeless people kick
pushing them down the street. So maybe they all end up in backyards, and the
companies go out of business. But maybe I'm wrong and it's a minor problem.
They make enough to pay for the loses, and become a nice transportation
option.

Long term there's certainly a place for permitting, but it's much better to do
permissive experiments than to guess every possible downside.

As a counterexample, NY is still confiscating electric bikes. What a waste.

[https://www.outsideonline.com/2298141/are-we-living-
golden-a...](https://www.outsideonline.com/2298141/are-we-living-golden-age-
cycling)

Kudos to SF for experimenting.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
NY is ticketing motor vehicles operating on bike paths and without the legally
required lighting or registration. Comply with the law and ebikes are
perfectly fine.

------
michaelt
I suspect regulators have learned from Uber and AirBnB that if you take a
"wait and see" approach to regulating startups, by the time you decide to
regulate they're already big enough they think they can thumb their nose at
regulators with impunity.

And while some people might cheer regulators losing power, the regulators
themselves are seldom among them.

------
ztratar
As a selfish consumer, I LOVE these scooters & want the city to "figure it
out" to make them viable ASAP.

Shut up and take my money, ok? ;)

------
chairmanwow
> Yee, noted how he’s heard from seniors and people in wheelchairs who are
> “being imperiled and inconvenienced because they are having to navigate
> around scooters and bikes.”

This is one of the more unconvincing statements in this article. The massive
convenience win that shared bicycles, scooters, cars etc bring to cities is
well worth the "inconvenience" of them being parked on the sidewalk.

I think SF needs to go the route of Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen etc and
designate MANY, MANY bicycle parking zones on the city's sidewalks.

As long as the companies are decentized to allow their machines to be a public
nuisance (fines), they will pass on the cost of poor parking behavior to
whomever actually place the scooter in a dangerous / rude / thoughtless place.
See the "Mobike Score" [0].

I hate the rhetoric that the streets are being vitiated by shared
transportation. There are simple fixes to these problems.

[0] [https://mobike.com/us/faq](https://mobike.com/us/faq) (Mobike Score)

~~~
Mizza
Are you being sarcastic? You really think that Shanghai is a good model for
this? Did you not see this photo set?:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-
oversup...](https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-
in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/)

The sidewalk is a public resource. Companies shouldn't be able to use it
without paying the public for its usage. A restaurant needs a paid permit just
to put chairs and tables in front of their building, why should it be any
different for a scooter company?

~~~
jseliger
More vitally, did you not see this astounding photoset of abandoned dockless
vehicles? [https://slate.com/business/2018/04/astounding-photos-
capture...](https://slate.com/business/2018/04/astounding-photos-capture-
graveyards-of-unused-dockless-vehicles-in-american-cities.html) . They litter
virtually every city street, and yet we're somehow willing to ignore the
relentless space they waste.

~~~
et-al
Aside from the fact that one needs to be licensed for them, obey some
generally accepted rules of the road, and "abandon" their vehicles in an
orderly fashion.

I understand we're going through the growing-pains period with these dockless
vehicles, but Lime, Spin, and Bird have no excuses for not taking any
precautions against this. _Especially_ Lime since we've seen issues with
dockless bikes in China before they were brought here. The reason why these
companies don't care is because their bikes/push-scooters are so cheap to
manufacturer. They've basically created disposable vehicles.

So I'm glad lawmakers are doing something about this. And yes, of course there
are other issues we need to tackle for SF sidewalks with feces and needles.

~~~
vkou
> and "abandon" their vehicles in an orderly fashion.

Never mind that we set aside large parts of our public space for people to
curbside park. If we were to set aside two parking spots per block for
bicycles, you wouldn't have any problems with them being left on sidewalks.

~~~
et-al
I agree, but the point was about the weak comparison in the snarky Slate post.

Like I said, we're in a transition phase in American cities. More people are
willing to ride bikes (and e-scooters) these days. And with these changing
needs, cities will replace car parking spots with bicycle/e-scooter/motorcycle
parking.

------
MrGando
I live in San Francisco. These things are everywhere, the people who ride them
leave them anywhere as well. Sometimes just laying flat on the ground even. I
hate that they take sidewalk space. Hopefully they'll figure it out... but I'm
all in for designated parking areas for these things or taking them off the
sidewalk.

~~~
gkoberger
We clearly live in a different San Francisco. I see them all over, but have
only seen maybe 1-2 (out of hundreds) that are blocking anything or knocked
over. And the ones that are laying flat are likely knocked down by someone who
dislikes them.

------
ibeckermayer
Everybody complaining about these scooters will get used to it. They're not
very inconvenient, they're literally just objects on the sidewalk that you
need to walk around. I use them all the time, they're a quick, efficient way
to get around. Also fun to ride.

~~~
randyrand
Simple solution: There should be painted areas on the sidewalk to put them,
and regulators should be able to fine companies if they're found outside of
it, which will then pass that fine onto the user that left it there.

~~~
blhack
I can physically pick one of these up and move it outside of the box. Who gets
fined now?

Where do the boxes get painted?

Your solution is not simple.

~~~
chrischen
Actually Bird just implemented a feature after the cease and desist that
requires you to take a picture of your parking job.

~~~
DrScump
Are there unique identifiers that are visible in a photo panned out far enough
to show the context in which the bike was parked?

(Leaving aside the fact that you could take the photo at any favorable
location within minutes of your destination... or just change the photo
metadata.)

------
fluxsauce
There's also a need for better hardware security on the scooters themselves; I
saw at least two in SOMA this morning missing their batteries.

------
tt
SF has learned its lessons from Uber (and presumably read up on the bike
sharing problems in China).

My take on these scooter startups is that they won't make it very far:
[https://www.inc.com/alex-moazed/electric-scooter-startups-
in...](https://www.inc.com/alex-moazed/electric-scooter-startups-in-battle-
with-san-francisco.html)

------
kjgkjhfkjf
Carelessly placed scooters are a mild irritation, around the same level of
annoyance as over-enthusiastic tree-planting requiring me to duck and weave
almost constantly as I walk along the sidewalk.

But the real problem that needs to be addressed is the idiots riding the
scooters on the sidewalk, expecting pedestrians to dive out of their way.

------
swang
i am generally in favor of alternative modes of transportation but these
scooters annoy the hell out of me.

everyday i walk down 2nd street there are scooters randomly strewn around.
some are upright, some are to the "side" of the sidewalk, but there is also a
group of them that look like they're just randomly thrown to the ground.

also sadly sf is just not very friendly to non-car transportation in the first
place. so the alternative is people riding these things ride them on the
sidewalks, which is annoying for pedestrians.

also a safety issue: i've seen maybe only 3-4 people ride one with a helmet.
maybe that's on the user of the scooter, but then again none of the scooter
companies seem to address it since that'll probably mean less rides for them.

i support the idea, but they make the city aesthetically more unpleasing than
it needs to be and makes my morning walk to work and back more annoying.

~~~
s0rce
Cars are ugly, litter the streets and are exceptionally dangerous.

~~~
swang
if you agree with that point why would you continue to encourage that to
expand to the sidewalks?

~~~
stale2002
Because every scooter is 1 less uber ride across town, or 1 less car on the
road.

------
johnnyOnTheSpot
Undocumented scooters are a problem. They take the work away from us cyclist
who haul tourists everywhere.

------
smaili
For those wondering why the permits:

> “This is a basic permitting scheme to allow the professional staff at SFMTA
> to permit these with sensible, regulatory frameworks and to be able to
> confiscate unpermitted vehicles or devices,” Sheehy said.

~~~
djrogers
That doesn't answer the 'why'.

I have read the article, and still have no idea what specifically the city
wans to regulate. What types of rules and requirements are the councilmembers
and SFMTA expecting to put in place? Are there specific restrictions that are
in the interest of the city's residents, or is this just a money-grab?

~~~
DogOnTheWeb
Presumably permitting will allow the city to control the amount of scooters on
the streets to control public space congestion and ensure that those who
operate in the city are following rules regarding placement, education and
safety.

~~~
CyberDildonics
Is there an actual problem being solved or is it just a solution in search of
a problem?

------
0x00000000
Title is kind of misleading. They are talking about permits for companies to
deploy them for scooter-sharing services, not for a person to operate one.

~~~
dang
Ok, we've rephrased it to reflect that.

