It is hard not to notice the Bird/Lime Scooters. Almost every morning, two or three are parked outside my house. How should we think about these things? How do I think about these things?
–As a biker, I think human power is a feature, not a bug. Why can’t scooters be human powered? Or why can’t everyone bike like me? I admit it I am a little snobbish and committed to my paradigm.
–I think an automobile is absurd from an engineering point of view. To the problem of moving a person weighing 100-300 pounds around, we come up with a solution that requires moving something weighing 3000 pounds. Scooters are obviously much more efficient. I also I think that anything that gives us more transportation options is a good thing.
–There seems to be no paradigm for how scooters are ridden. Should they be ridden on the street or on the sidewalk? Scooters are very quiet and can surprise pedestrians. We need to have some guidelines do prevent pedestrians from getting injured by scooters.
–One trend of our day has been to socialize costs and privatize benefits. I see that in the scooters and limebikes. Bird and Lime say they are going to consider all sidewalks parking spaces for their products. Everyone else will just have to endure the inconvenience of perhaps having the sidewalk block so that they can make money.
–Will scooters prove to be a real transportation system that helps address the problem of gridlock or just a fad? The company Bird is worth $2 billion dollars right now, so some people apparently think it is a serious technology.