citynews

Handy mobility option or sidewalk scourge?  Kriston Capps/CityLab What People Mean When They Call Dockless Bikeshare a 'Nuisance' KRISTON CAPPS   JAN 19, 2018 In Washington, D.C., some residents are not enthusiastic about the free-range rent-a-bikes. SHARE TWEET Washington, D.C., is now four months into its  dockless bikeshare experiment , which extends through April. This is long enough for the meddlesome neighborly gripes of D.C. residents who object to these free-range rentable bicycles to reach full bloom. It’s the response that often greets minor improvements to the way things work, and it’s currently having its high-modernist moment, its uproarious third season, its Fifth Symphony. The meddlesome neighborly gripe starts with a root-chord complaint about how bikeshare leads to a lot of sidewalk “clutter.” While there is some truth to that, a proper listserv riposte would never stop there. Beyond lay greater rhetorical heights. It’s prudent to first c

Andrew Small I Have Seen the Future of Urbanism and It's a Scooter ANDREW SMALL   MAR 16, 2018 While you’re still trying to figure out dockless bikes, there’s a new two-wheeler to share around town. It could be a bigger deal than you think. SHARE TWEET Hold onto your glasses, nerds: The scooters are here. As cities around the U.S. still try to figure out  what dockless bikesharing is , a leader in that nascent industry is betting that some urbanites are already ready for the next big thing—scooter-sharing. LimeBike, one of several firms  operating docklessly in Washington, D.C. , unleashed a fleet of electric-assist scooters in the nation’s capital this week, marking the scooter-share’s East Coast debut. (They first hit the streets last month, in San Diego.) “Cities are craving solutions to downtown congestion,” LimeBike’s strategic developer Maggie Gendron told me as we rode on some of D.C.’s quieter streets. “It may be a bike for one, a scooter for another,

Prepare now for the tiny vehicle takeover.  Kathy Willens/AP Why Little Vehicles Will Conquer the City BENJAMIN SCHNEIDER   JUN 21, 2018 Nearly all of them look silly, but if taken seriously, they could be a really big deal for urban transportation. SHARE TWEET The public reaction to the arrival of dockless bikes and electric scooters in U.S. cities can be tracked in stages. The first stage, for many, was  annoyance . Who were these grown men and women on candy-colored bikes and teeny kick-scooters speeding down the streets and sidewalks, menacing walkers and leaving their rented toys all over the place? Especially in San Francisco, where this whimsical new mobility mode has taken off, scooters have come to represent yet another example of tech industry entitlement, another way for a startup to move fast and break stuff. In response, many a Twitter urbanist has used this backlash to point out the relative danger and disruption of larger dockless vehicles: P