Micromobility (bikeshare, scootershare)

[tomh009]

As both a pedal assist e-(cargo) bike user and spandex warrior using the MUTs, strong agreement on all accounts. The law makes zero sense when it's baseline riding for most sports cyclists on an unassisted road bike to be 25 kph or more. I realize the e-bikes can be heavier and the throttle vs. pedalling has differing behaviour but its like the template of road laws where its actual more down to common sense safe riding/driving.

They can be substantially heavier once you get beyond the e-bicycle and into the e-vespas, e-mopeds and the e-motorcycles. All of which fit into that very flexible e-bike bucket.

[dtkvictim]

Some scooters happened to be parked right outside of an appointment I left today, and since I got followed by a shouting tweaker who was punching the walls behind me on my walk to the appointment, I thought I would try it out to get home. Despite having my own scooter and ebike, it would be nice to have quality rentals too so I don't have to worry about theft or carrying a scooter around.

The good: Renting a scooter was dead simple. Scan the QR code and you are off.

Some minor annoyances: First, they seem limited to 20km/h, while I believe the limit for privately owned scooters is 32km/h (this might have already been mentioned here before), and you can feel it braking hard while going downhill. It also has a loud voice shouting at you when you unlock the scooter, when you change speed settings, and if it detects you on a sidewalk, which I'm not a fan of. It also struggled to get up the Cedar St hill, going ~8km/h by the time I made it to the top (btw, the Cedar St bike lanes are unprotected south of King, annoying...) - probably not unusual for a scooter though.

My major annoyance was when it came to parking. I noticed parking at the old Charles St terminal before my trip, so I went there to park. When I got there a bunch of scooters were lined up at the bike racks (i.e. blocking some of the bike racks from being used), so I went there and pressed end trip. The app asked me to point my camera around so it could determine where I was, and it said I was not in a valid parking area each time. Eventually I pulled the map back up, and noticed that the parking area was actually a bit away from where they had set the scooters, and was also 80% on the road and ION tracks. I headed over to the small sliver of sidewalk that was inside of the parking area, ended my trip, and then pushed it back over to where the rest were parked. As I was walking it back, the scooter loudly shouted at me to not do anything illegal! xD.

Ultimately 1/3 of my trip time was spent trying to park it, and the rental was not worth the $5 I spent.

You can see in this photo the poorly placed parking zone relative to where the scooters are. The no riding zone is the ION tracks.

[ac3r]

They really gotta work out where is a No Ride Zone. Yesterday I was waiting at Grand River Hospital Station where two people were going down the road towards Waterloo. Well the hospital, LRT tracks plus the sidewalk are all No Ride Zones, leaving only the skinny stretch of King Street to ride on. The two people were going so...so...sooooo slow. Because of the vaguely mapped No Ride Zones here, both scooters eventually came to a complete stop in the middle of the road where the people riding them seemed quite confused, forcing them to apologize to traffic and try to get them off.

[dunkalunk]

I took one of Neuron's scooters out for a ride today. Route went down Duke, over Cedar Hill, and over the rail overpass on Stirling.

The scooter had a tough time getting up Cedar in the designated bike lane, would not be able to make it up under its own power and had to foot pump a bit to get it up the hill.

Detected that I was riding on the sidewalk when in the middle of a traffic lane at a couple points.

The app then "reminded" me not to park on the grass, despite all of the other scooters at my drop off point parked in the grass boulevard between the street and the sidewalk, instead of in the middle of the sidewalk like I was supposed to. There really needs to be dedicated parking space put aside for parking so it's obvious where the drop off points are supposed to be.

I also found it difficult to take my hand off the handlebars in order to signal traffic movements properly.

Would I use again? Probably not. I own a bike which has bigger wheels and a smoother ride, and transit is cheaper.

[dtkvictim]

Detected that I was riding on the sidewalk when in the middle of a traffic lane at a couple points.

Funnily enough, I saw one of the employees/contractors who collect and redistribute the scooters riding on the sidewalk to put them in position.

[ac3r]

"It won't be as bad this time! This isn't Lime!" the shills tried to say. Heh.

[clasher]

I ran into a similar logjam early morning last weekend at Columbia. If I weren't in a hurry I'd have moved them onto the grass.

[Bob_McBob]

"It won't be as bad this time! This isn't Lime!" the shills tried to say. Heh.

Who are these shills you're talking about? I don't remember anyone saying the Neuron Mobility rollout would be perfect. I do remember a lot of hand wringing about how everyone who used them was going to die horribly and/or get head lice, and certainly plenty of whining about how a few badly parked scooters meant it was an abject failure and menace to society. Lime had similar issues but it was hardly the disaster a lot of people seem to remember.

[Bytor]

"It won't be as bad this time! This isn't Lime!" the shills tried to say. Heh.

Anybody calling the other person "shills" instead of using facts and evidence has already lost the debate.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Shill_gambit

[ijmorlan]

Well, the bottom line is that services of this nature should have fixed parking stations. The way Communauto does it is right (except that their cars need to be returned to the same space, which I understand for their service but would make a scooter service much less useful). Just because scooters and bicycles don’t take up as much space as a car doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to expect to be able to park them just anywhere at the end of a trip. If one ends up on my lawn I might try to disable the charging features and re-paint it if successful.

[bravado]

The Cambridge Cycling and Trails committee decided to finally meet after a year (and post their minutes months late) and I discovered this tidbit about Neuron usage in the minutes:

Micromobility Update and Launch Event
- (city staff) gave an update on micromobility in the Region
- Over 20,000 rides have been taken across the Region since April 15 (these minutes are from May FYI)
- Close to 2,000 rides in Cambridge (majority in K/W likely because of universities)

I look forward to the Mayor not even noticing the fact that people can't (or don't want to) get around in her city while she's fighting to preserve Hespeler Rd.

[ac3r]

Just curious if the Neuron (or whatever it is being) bike sharing thing is still operating? Maybe I just haven't been paying attention but I never see their bikes or scooters downtown or anywhere else.

[bravado]

Just curious if the Neuron (or whatever it is being) bike sharing thing is still operating? Maybe I just haven't been paying attention but I never see their bikes or scooters downtown or anywhere else.

They were taken away for winter - obviously nobody needs to get around when it’s cold out.

[danbrotherston]

Just curious if the Neuron (or whatever it is being) bike sharing thing is still operating? Maybe I just haven't been paying attention but I never see their bikes or scooters downtown or anywhere else.

They were taken away for winter - obviously nobody needs to get around when it’s cold out.

I'm not surprised, but I also don't think it's a major issue...

This is a private company, and in as much as scooters can be called assets, they would be significantly degraded by salty winter conditions, so it makes sense for them to be pulled, a private company would rather protect their assets then be a reliable service (and this is why private companies should not provide fundamental services).

But I don't think it's a big deal, because this isn't really a fundamental service, it's a toy of convenience for people who mostly have other options for getting around. Sure it would be nice to have these in winter, but I don't think anyone is stranded as a result of these not operating....unlike happened when our singular private bus operator stopped operating.

[ac3r]

Ah okay, that makes sense. I thought maybe they pulled out entirely.

If only we bothered to plow the trails and sidewalks properly...