Counting scooters "strewn" on the trails – MVT at the CCC to the Jefferson

[Emm]

@dbb 189512 wrote:

I’d think that morning rides would be the best times as the evening is when the scooters get collected, charged, and repositioned.

hahaha thats a joke, right? The same 3-4 scooters were on one of the bridges by the airport for over a week, and may still be there. Pretty sure some of the scooters I saw on the 14th st bridge this morning have been there all week too.

I actually think scooters are a great idea in theory, but I’m getting pretty annoyed by how they’re getting strewn all over the MVT and 14th St bridges. They’re creating some unsafe conditions on my daily commute.

[bentbike33]

@Emm 189513 wrote:

hahaha thats a joke, right? The same 3-4 scooters were on one of the bridges by the airport for over a week, and may still be there. Pretty sure some of the scooters I saw on the 14th st bridge this morning have been there all week too.

I actually think scooters are a great idea in theory, but I’m getting pretty annoyed by how they’re getting strewn all over the MVT and 14th St bridges. They’re creating some unsafe conditions on my daily commute.

Yes, during the afternoon commute yesterday there seemed to be something like 20 scooters on the 14th Street Bridge alone. I wonder how many now sleep with the fishes given the cursing I heard from cyclists trying to maneuver around them as well as the crowds of tourists.

[dbb]

@Emm 189513 wrote:

hahaha thats a joke, right? The same 3-4 scooters were on one of the bridges by the airport for over a week, and may still be there. Pretty sure some of the scooters I saw on the 14th st bridge this morning have been there all week too.

I actually think scooters are a great idea in theory, but I’m getting pretty annoyed by how they’re getting strewn all over the MVT and 14th St bridges. They’re creating some unsafe conditions on my daily commute.

If I may revise and extend my earlier statement, “I’d think that morning rides would be the best times as the companies have the opportunity to collect, charge, and reposition the scooters they care about.” The goal would be to identify problems and problem locations.

Maybe an approach like the soda can deposit in many areas might work. If a scooter company were to put a $100 deposit down on every scooter they deploy, then they could get the deposit back when they take it out of service at the end of it’s life. Absent that, the community has some cash to deal with the litter. Non-company returns wouldn’t be permitted as that would encourage theft.

[ChristoB50]

Ah yes, 14th Street Bridge — there were 4 or perhaps 5, left on the bridge’s walkway when I crossed it into DC yesterday… and coming back into VA 40 minutes later, the same ones were still there, PLUS 2 scooter riders traveling in front of me parked their 2 scooters immediately at the end of the concrete paving just as it meets asphalt, on the VA side of the crossing… as parking jobs go (compared to the dangerous examples consuming precious space on the 14th St. Br. walkway) — their parking choice was stellar — they used a thin strip of grass about 8 inches wide, to lean the scooters against the metal fencing there, thus keeping the scooters entirely off the trail’s asphalt; even if just barely.
I didn’t attempt to count the scooters abandoned/parked in the grassy areas throughout my bike ride along PYT, MVT, Hains and 4MR… I’d guess about 2-3 dozen? But at least none of those poses trail-blocking dangers by their discarded placement.

I’d be stunned if any of the scooter companies had the resources (human labor force), or the desire/motivation, to daily go find and move/collect “troublesome” parked scooters. They don’t seem to me to make any attempt at training or even etiquette guidelines for their renters, such as “never park your scooter on a bridge… never park your scooter across a sidewalk or trail pathway… survey your parking location and ensure it is not a blind spot for any oncoming traffic… ” etc. Nor I suspect, do they have any effective means of delivering such training/guidelines to the whole of their renter population, let alone any chance of enforcing it… a “Tips and Hints” page displayed within the riding app would be looked at in earnest, I suppose, by what, a minuscule fraction of renters?

Then again, every cloud has a silver lining, and dotting our MUT’s with space-grabbing obstacles may gradually introduce slower biking speeds to some of the speed demons out there now, just as pedestrian crowds are starting to grow exponentially fast!

[lordofthemark]

AFAICT people leave them in strange spots (IE not walkable to anything) because they run out of charge. I suspect they are left badly parked and not collected on trails because its harder for the companies to collect them there than on sidewalks adjacent to streets. Best solution would be for the companies to use ebikes with trailers to gather the scooters.

[lordofthemark]

@bentbike33 189514 wrote:

Yes, during the afternoon commute yesterday there seemed to be something like 20 scooters on the 14th Street Bridge alone. I wonder how many now sleep with the fishes given the cursing I heard from cyclists trying to maneuver around them as well as the crowds of tourists.

I don’t want to minimize anyone’s frustration that leads to dumping a scooter in the river. But just imagine what the public reaction would be if a cyclist did even minor deliberate damage to a car that was parked in a bike lane. As a community we’d be drawn and quartered.

[dasgeh]

@dbb 189512 wrote:

Let’s count scooters along trail segments and post those counts to the forum.

The scooter companies have and shared all of the geocoded data on the location of scooters with the localities. It’s not perfect – e.g. it’s not good enough to tell if a scooter is properly parked on a sidewalk v in someone’s yard beside the sidewalk – but it’s good enough to narrow whether the scooters are in the vicinity of the trail. I’m not sure what citizen-led counts get us that a data query wouldn’t show quickly, with no volunteer time…

@ChristoB50 189517 wrote:

2 scooter riders traveling in front of me parked their 2 scooters immediately at the end of the concrete paving just as it meets asphalt, on the VA side of the crossing… as parking jobs go (compared to the dangerous examples consuming precious space on the 14th St. Br. walkway) — their parking choice was stellar — they used a thin strip of grass about 8 inches wide, to lean the scooters against the metal fencing there, thus keeping the scooters entirely off the trail’s asphalt; even if just barely.

Did you ask them why they were parking there? It just seems odd…

@ChristoB50 189517 wrote:

I’d be stunned if any of the scooter companies had the resources (human labor force), or the desire/motivation, to daily go find and move/collect “troublesome” parked scooters. They don’t seem to me to make any attempt at training or even etiquette guidelines for their renters, such as “never park your scooter on a bridge… never park your scooter across a sidewalk or trail pathway… survey your parking location and ensure it is not a blind spot for any oncoming traffic… ” etc. Nor I suspect, do they have any effective means of delivering such training/guidelines to the whole of their renter population, let alone any chance of enforcing it… a “Tips and Hints” page displayed within the riding app would be looked at in earnest, I suppose, by what, a minuscule fraction of renters?

The companies have very small labor forces, but rely on the “gig” economy to do the finding, moving and collecting. Honestly, if you have a proposal for taking an ebike+trailer (or something) to grab all these trail-abandoned scooters, pitch it to the companies with your price, and see what they say.

The companies do attempt training for their riders (some more than others), but honestly, it’s just going to take a second for norms to settle and ideas to catch on. There are some places that seem like good parking spaces from one angle, but not from another. Or would be a good spot, until the scooter is blown down. Personally, I think more needs to be done to encourage parking in street-parking spots and off of the sidewalks.

[Steve O]

@lordofthemark 189519 wrote:

I don’t want to minimize anyone’s frustration that leads to dumping a scooter in the river. But just imagine what the public reaction would be if a cyclist did even minor deliberate damage to a car that was parked in a bike lane. As a community we’d be drawn and quartered.

Agreed. Perhaps a better solution would be to lift them over the other railing and gently place them in the narrow shoulder of the highway, leaning against the barrier. Perhaps that would get the attention of authorities.
It might also make people wonder who was riding their scooter across the bridge and left it there to continue walking.

[Crickey7]

There are probably 10 on the CCT, which, given the long distances between vehicle access points, leads me to conclude they’re not going anywhere any time soon.

[dbb]

@dasgeh 189520 wrote:

The scooter companies have and shared all of the geocoded data on the location of scooters with the localities. It’s not perfect – e.g. it’s not good enough to tell if a scooter is properly parked on a sidewalk v in someone’s yard beside the sidewalk – but it’s good enough to narrow whether the scooters are in the vicinity of the trail. I’m not sure what citizen-led counts get us that a data query wouldn’t show quickly, with no volunteer time…

If you know who in Arlington has or will receive the counts for the MVT from this week, please share. What frequency do you think the data is provided? Is the data public or proprietary?

It seems to me that the scooter companies provide a bonus for retrieving and charging scooters parked at hard to reach locations. Maybe if they were to just pay more, the problem would resolve itself with company resources.

[phog]

I rode a motorcycle to work on I-66 with a bicycle clamped to the back, took the bicycle home. In the PM: Too many to scoots tp count scattered across The Mall, one broken in half at the Washington Monument, plenty more all along Memorial Bridge,and MVT. Almost none once I got to the Custis Trail in Rosslyn.
Are any of these companies actually profitable yet? I don’t see how it is possible….

[huskerdont]

@phog 189526 wrote:

Are any of these companies actually profitable yet? I don’t see how it is possible….

The things are for all intents and purposes disposable; individual scooters have a v. short lifespan (about a month according to a recent article). Any “profit” has to come from seed money or subsidies. It’s a passing fad that will barely be remembered in a few years. This too shall pass.

[DrP]

Yesterday morning there were at least four scooters on Trollheim. At least the wood was dry so any need to swerve was less likely to cause a slip and fall. I was very pleased to see that there were none there this morning, when it would have been dangerous. Instead there were four between Memorial Bridge and the Merchant Marine Memorial, three of which were nicely parked next to benches and one tossed to the side.

Actually, on my commute yesterday, before seeing this thread, but after seeing all the ones on Trollheim, I was thinking that NPS should just start fining the companies a few hundred per day for hazardous littering – those batteries being hazardous to the environment. And this would be for ones that are not located within50ft of a parking lot or some such accessible point for juicers. This time of year it would be worth it to the NPS to have someone go collect them and send notices to the companies for fines and then charge them each day they do not come and pick them up at some obscure NPS location that is only open some limited number of hours. If the companies wish to bill back to the last user, that is up to them. They could have their software warn the user that the location they just left it will cause them to be charged a fee and thus recommend that they move it. There could be a time limit, like if they or someone else moves it in an hour, then there is no fee. But something like this could be done.

Can those things move when not powered? Meaning if the battery died can someone ride it like a regular, albeit heavy, scooter (like the electric CABIs)?

[ChristoB50]

@DrP 189528 wrote:

Can those things move when not powered? Meaning if the battery died can someone ride it like a regular, albeit heavy, scooter (like the electric CABIs)?

The few I have moved out of the trail, have been wheel-locked — so they don’t roll. (Don’t know if that still happens with a truly dead battery, however.) One of them, after I’d moved it perhaps 10 feet from its badly-parked location, suddenly started talking to me with a recording, “Do not move the scooter. If you continue to move the scooter, police will be notified” or words to that effect…

[Steve O]

@phog 189526 wrote:

I rode a motorcycle to work on I-66 with a bicycle clamped to the back, took the bicycle home. In the PM: Too many to scoots to count scattered across The Mall, one broken in half at the Washington Monument, plenty more all along Memorial Bridge,and MVT. Almost none once I got to the Custis Trail in Rosslyn.

So did you leave your motorcycle strewn about?

[Author]

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