Riding dockless scooters on LA's West side
I’m a long-term bikeshare and urban transportation geek.
I first discovered Velib in Paris a decade ago, and as soon as CitiBike showed in NYC, I was in. Way before stuff worked well. Way before there were docks smartly placed throughout lower Manhattan, cross Brooklyn and river-facing communities in Jersey.
I blogged about them back in 2013.
In the largest and busiest city in the country, they are part of our infrastructure, spawning an ecosystem of more bike lanes and a deeper partnership between bikes, people and cars on the street.
But in New York, we don’t have—as yet—anything dockless, nor anything like these electric scooters simply strewn around like flotsam on every corner and cranny in Santa Monica and Venice Beach.
I’m hooked on them for this place.
When visiitng not Ubering as much. Not using the hotel shuttle, just jumping on these things to go to meetings and dinners.
The scooter wars are well documented and old news.
The rivalry between the $100m-funded Bird and chief competitor LimeBike, and between both of them with neighborhoods, cities, community groups and the police is acerbic and ongoing.
One on hand they are simply a game changer for micro-mobility, on the other a huge early infancy mess.
If you haven’t used them, in LA you simply download the Bird and Lime apps, find one of the scooters anywhere, use a QRC code to unlock and ride.
It takes about 10 minutes to go from Pico and Main in Santa Monica to Rose in Venice, 5-10 minutes longer to Abbot Kinney. To Rose, cost is $2.20, around $10/dollars an hour. That route is a 20+ minute, $10+ Uber ride or a solid hour to walk.
They are already part of the culture here.
This morning at 5am when I was meditating on the beach to start the day, a caravan of surfers arrived carrying their surfboards on LimeBike scooters, with their dogs chasing after them!
I can’t wrap my head around how dockless in general or these scooters could work in Manhattan but in LA they are natural to the landscape, serving a real purpose.
They are simply everywhere. Some in orderly lines, most just thrown around.
On the streets. On the sidewalks. People pulling friends on skateboards and one idiot with his baby in a carrier! Percent of helmets—very small.
So yes, users love them. And abuse them.
Neighborhoods kvetch about the messiness. Municipalities are rightly concerned about the safety.
The scooter companies, acting in the tradition of Uber in the early days, are just doing it. Breaking rules, not asking forgiveness and literally rolling forward creating fans and a massive exhaust of ill will in their wake.
What I know as a user though is that they are a transportation solution that needed to be here. In an area with too many cars, no parking, large distances and no public trans.
Somethings just feels right and touches both a natural market and personal need. Scooters here are that, just as CitiBikes were in NY.
And to be clear, in the beginning CitiBikes were a mess.
Broken racks. No racks. Racks never filled. Racks overfilled. Customer service nightmares.
Then it gets fixed, piece by piece with customer feedback and city participation.
Bikeshare doesn’t work in LA while you might think weather wise, it is a natural fit. The city infrastructure is not there nor is the commitment. Bike paths from Beverly Hills to Santa Monica or from SM to Malibu–never going to happen!
But scooters seem right.
Dockless as well as something that could be indigenous to a Southern Cal transportation solution. It isn’t near perfect for certain, but a short list of rules could fix 90% of the things that are broken.
Some things just make sense cause they solve problems and make life better and more fun.
Scooters are just that for this place.
This is not a technology looking for a solution. This is a solution in its messy early infancy that is just not that hard to make right.