It is very frustrating that, even in this otherwise-good @verge overview of the past and future of shared micromobility in the wake of Bird's bankruptcy, that there is zero mention of the completely-unresolved issue of blocking sidewalks and rendering them inaccessible. https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/21/24010902/bird-bankrupt-electric-scooter-micromobility-ridership-future
My contrarian take: It's good actually that these companies had a good multiyear run and are now flaming out. People who tried them, like them, and use them frequently will buy their own devices.
There are no shared micromobility fleets in Camberville (except public docked Bluebikes), but plenty of micromobility devices out and about, and sidewalks are still accessible. Private ownership of micromobility devices should be the policy goal.
@bikepedantic I dunno if anyone’s crunched the numbers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if private ownership of micromobility is actually better from an emissions standpoint than shared fleet services, somewhat counterintuitively
@dx seems likely to me - no battery swapping or rebalancing operations
@bikepedantic @dx definitely operational emissions saved, the big variable is ICE car trips displaced from SMM availability. I'm skeptical that would be enough to offset operational emissions despite some dubiously head-turning survey results about trip displacement. Plus, many power users mode switching will buy their own. How do you quantify the value of the pathway from casual SMM user to individual radical mode shift? I'm not sure it's worth it to get too much in the weeds of that.
@bikepedantic @dx I will say that I've been emphasizing recently the flexibility value to the transportation system SMM provides. Important in places without docked bikeshare, especially with traditional transit struggling so much with service cuts. You can't ask someone to buy a bike/scooter if their car doesn't start at 8:20am on a beautiful May morning, but they might grab a shared one.
@alexkgellis @dx Sure. But i'm damn tired of saying that sort of stuff to people sending me pictures of people using wheelchairs who can't use the sidewalks in their communities. That's the seemingly permanent tradeoff.
@bikepedantic @dx We're taking the leap next season in Providence after a couple years tearing our hair out about this to requiring SMM to park in daylighting zone corrals in the areas with highest density of devices. If it's still a problem we could expand to citywide. Also right-sizing our total devices after a few years of fleet size inflation driven by politics instead of policy/market demand. We'll see if it works!
@alexkgellis @bikepedantic @dx I want to see Providence join BlueBikes, let people use it on both ends of the commuter rail
@DemonHusky @alexkgellis @dx Baltimore made some brief exciting noise about joining Capital Bikeshare years ago, would have been exactly that awesomeness
@bikepedantic @alexkgellis @dx I have a dream that all major stops along the commuter rail and all rail-trails (looking at you Bedofrd Depot and Lynn Marketbasket) join BB
@DemonHusky @alexkgellis @dx MBTA Communities 2.0
