You’ll find no disagreement from me that we needn’t completely ban scooters, only figure out the right way to regulate them. Not coincidentally, the MTA isn’t completely banning them, just beginning to regulate them.

As for the specific solution you suggested, I think that sounds great, although it isn’t obvious to me that it would “cost nothing”. At the very least, deciding on parking spots for them seems like it would take a lot of a bunch of government employees’ time. It certainly seems reasonable to me to start with a permitting system on the handful of companies, which seems like it would take much less time to implement.

Maybe, just maybe, the level of scooters strewn about is wildly overstated.

I agree. As a pedestrian I see scooters whizzing past me about 10x more than I see scooters left on the sidewalk. When I have the opportunity, I tell the drivers, very nicely, that they aren't supposed to be on the sidewalk. Very often I get some 4 letter words thrown my way.

This is why I hate the things.

>Why can't there be similar measures for scooters

Because when your only hammer is regulation everything else is a nail.

Edit: this isn't meant negatively. If you ask a painter what will make your house nicer they'll tell you to paint it. If you ask an organization that creates and enforces legislation to solve a problem they'll try to legislate it out of existence. Problems are solved with the tools at hand.

You can't store your stuff in public areas. This has little to do with scooters, leave your motorcycle on the sidewalk and it's likely to be gone when you get back.

PS: A much better solution IMO is to simply pick them up and sell em for scrap. Problem solved.

uh, where do you park your bike?

In Santa Monica, they're planning to add a pictograph of a scooter to bike lanes so the tourists know to ride there instead of the side walks. (And they're charging the scooter companies additional fees to pay for the costs.)

They've also started a marketing campaign. Recently saw a banner on a city bus with 3 "scooter laws" written on the side (helmet, not on sidewalks, etc). Both Lime and Bird have adopted giving out free helmets to frequent riders. Seems they're much more accepted down here as well when compared to SF.

So you suggest that cities pay for infrastructure in order to enable financial gain of private companies.

Let's just say that I disagree.

That's par for the course, for example you don't see Ford chipping in for the 275,000 street parking spots in the Bay Area. SF could easily remove one parking spot per block and make it parking for bikes and scooters. But then all the people used to the city subsidizing their parking will be in an uproar. It's only a subsidy when the other guy gets it.

Cities have done that for thousands of years. It's a symbiotic relationship. The businesses pay taxes which pay for services to make the businesses more viable.

No, I'm suggesting that cities pay for infrastructure to reduce the negative externalities imposed by dockless scooter companies. If such infrastructure incidentally makes it easier for those companies to make a profit, because the lack of the negative externalities is no longer producing a negative effect on the company's reputation, is that really so horrible? Are you willing to, through inaction, harm society just so a private company won't profit?

Sure, ideally, the scooter company should pay some kind of tax or fee to help pay for the infrastructure, but I'm not convinced that it needs to be a special tax or fee, applied only to the scooter companies, beyond typical general corporate income taxes etc. that the scooter company is already paying. Particularly because the infrastructure costs involved are cheap. In my opinion, society is better served by government moving quickly to provide needed services out of a general fund, than it is by delaying action for months or years just so that expenditures are 100% just instead of 99.9999% just. There is a balance...

I mean, cities already pay for roads, and food trucks are a thing.