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The Segway, Five Years Later
abb_road writes "The Segway was introduced with a promise to transform cities; BusinessWeek has an article on what the Segway has accomplished in 5 years, and how 'personal transportation,' and the company, have changed. From the article: 'The first Segway — a clean-running, technologically dumbfounding, fun-as-hell-to-ride device that was pretty much impossible to fall off of — was introduced to so much fanfare five years ago that the public-relations agency that helped engineer it still uses it as a case study in how to create a media frenzy. It may be an even better case study in media backlash. The initial euphoria had hardly worn off before a new consensus emerged: This was all much ado about a $5,000 scooter.'"
When "IT" was first announced, I thought Kamen had come up with a new form of fuel that would replace petroleum and really "change the world". So the scooter was kind of a let-down in comparison. Even so, I would love to have one and I imagine most people would. I just wouldn't want to pay for it!
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but it's not the one its designer intended. Indeed, on a segway, you look like a total dork and you're dangerous (I was passed by one on the sidewalk, I can attest to this).
But there's one area where segways excel, and that's giving a lot of freedom for disabled people to move around. Each time I hear about a segway story, it's about some handicapped person who finds it marvellous. Like this story for example, or this one which are rather typical.
So in short: I reckon segways should be banned on public thoroughfares, and allowed anywhere for disabled people.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Paris has a Da Vinci Code Segway tour. It sounded like a great idea but it was absurdly expensive, so I never did it. Hardly a redesigned city, but pretty cool idea nonetheless.
My GF and I rented Segways on a recent trip to Montreal. It was a blast. We zipped all over the waterfront, testing it on inclines, gravel, etc. It's pretty amazing how steep a surface it can climb. I wished it could go faster, actually.
These things could revolutionize cities, but it's not an overnight proposition because you're battling for real estate on the road with cars. Cities like Montreal, with extensive and sensible bike lanes/routes, make the most sense initially. But if they sold them in NYC, you'd really have to sell models equipped with miniguns to defend yourself against crazy taxi drivers.
In any case, if you get the chance to take one for a spin, do. It's really fun.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
... the cost of these things is impractically high right now. Once competition is allowed to play, we'll see hundreds of knock-offs from other companies at rates that make them practical. By that time, they'll be even better with fuel cells and better batteries.
Someone made a "segway" with the old Lego MindStorms kit :
http://www.teamhassenplug.org/robots/legway/
I can see the Segway being expensive for being an electric scooter, but 5000$USD is way too expensive.
Keep in mind that most cities still miserably fail at handling wheelchair traffic despite many many more years working on it. Hell, I STILL see brand-new sidewalks that don't have ramps. The stupidity of that is astounding. Keep in mind that the ratio of wheelchair users to Segway users is something like 500,000 to 1.
Actually the comment: "In Soviet Russia, cities redesign you" is pretty inciteful. It's what they really tried to do and part of why it so sucked to be living there.