They’re not going to leave those scooters all over the city, right?
I hear they’re free now
Free bird
Looks like they’re trying to restructure, so not shutting down operations just yet.
But hey, if they do, free scooters!
No theyve already been dumped in the nearest river
Free batteries and motors for the taking.
They’re giving us all the bird.
On one hand, the scooters were a pain in the ass. They dumped scooters all over sidewalks blocking the way. People often rode them on sidewalks posing a danger to people walking.
On the other hand, it was a low-pollution way of getting around a city without needing a car, and people actually used the scooters. If we’re going to keep the world from melting, there need to be fewer cars. Not just fewer internal-combustion cars, fewer cars in general. If we just replace gasoline engines with electric motors, it’s not going to solve the climate crisis. Cars also just make cities awful to walk, bike or use a scooter in. So, even if they were all electric, it would be annoying.
Personally, I always liked the bike sharing options a lot more than the scooter options. Whenever I was a tourist in a city that had those bike share programs, that’s always how I preferred to get around. You see a lot more, you can stop anywhere and take pictures, and when you’re done you can just plug the bike into the nearest available bike storage stand. But, scooters could be part of the solution. There are probably people who would ride scooters who wouldn’t use bikes, even e-bikes. If anything reduces the number of car journeys people take, it’s probably a good thing.
These scooters were not a low-pollution way to move around, at least not in France. In Paris, they were so abused and treated like disposable stuff that they had a very short life. All in all, they emitted as much co2 per km per persone as a commercial airplane.
Other towns had better luck with cheap long-term rentals including repairs and battery replacement when necessary, this made people behave more responsibly.
I get the sentiment for sure and nothing looks worse than seeing 5 of them knocked over on a sidewalk but they were pretty nice. Here in Seattle it’s hilly as fuck so walking down a hill to downtown then scootering back up was nice. Hopefully a good bike share can replace them.
Wow I’m not sure whether to say that took a long time or a short time (since many run in red for a long time).
They named the company Bird because that’s what they were flipping city residents as they dropped these pieces of shit in the middle of every downtown.
I use to see those things thrown into trees
Isn’t that where birds belong, though? In trees?
Good news
