'Bird Scooters Are Ruining Venice' (latimes.com)

Nate Jackson, writing for LA Times: Although I would like to avoid them, I have no choice but to consider them because I live in Venice, which is where the first Bird (electric scooters) hatched and where the flock is thickest. Bird's founder and CEO, Travis VanderZanden, says, "We won"t be happy till there are more Birds than cars," so I guess I am supposed to get used to it. [...] Suddenly, almost daily, I have some near-collision with a Bird scooter rider -- he who sees nothing but the phone in his hand, thinks of nothing but the next text, and hears nothing but whatever music he has chosen to pump through the white inserts protruding from his wasted ears. He who, despite all that, is still traveling up to 15 mph on the street or sidewalk.

Aside from road safety, which has been discussed thoroughly in this and other papers, Bird is also tearing away at the fabric of our Westside society. In Venice and Santa Monica, where Bird is centralized, thousands of people live on the streets, which helps explain the scooter's popularity. With a press of a throttle button, one can be whizzing along, leaving it all in a blur. Bird calls this solving the "first/last mile" problem. Problem? Is it a problem for a twentysomething to walk a single mile? To most residents, Venice itself is the solution: The weather is perfect, the ocean is a stone's throw away and each block has something interesting to see. But to walk through Venice is to understand that human misery exists just outside the frame of your Instagram feed.

Comments

What in the world is a bird scooter?

[mejustme]

Looks like these are electric rental scooters. You unlock one with an app on your phone, take it out for a spin. Once you reach your destination, you leave it somewhere else to charge and use the app to lock it up, thus making it available to someone else. https://www.bird.co/how

Street or sidewalk?

[Misagon]

Where I live, scooters and bicycles go in the bicycle lane. And if there is no bicycle lane, they go on the street. Never the sidewalk.

Set that rule. Then make sure to enforce it, and that includes letting the riders know that you do enforce it.
Then you would not get scooters where they don't belong and the most annoying, distracted scooter-riders won't like to ride in the most car-congested streets anyway.
Problem solved ... ?

Re:Street or sidewalk?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live, scooters and bicycles go in the bicycle lane. And if there is no bicycle lane, they go on the street. Never the sidewalk.

Just a few years ago I had some guy yell at me for NOT riding my bike on the sidewalk (this was in a suburban street with few cars). He was quite upset I was riding on the street, and not the sidewalk where it was "safe". In this case the street was perfectly fine, and the sidewalk was a problem because drivers tend not to see you when you cross the street at the sidewalk. Some people get very adamant about what THEY think is the right choice, to the point of having to tell others in angry tones.

This despite the fact that the street is largely preferred to riding on, though it sort of depends on the area. Generally I use my best judgement, and only occasionally use the sidewalk to ride on.

The point being, some people have weird ideas about street/sidewalk for different vehicles. In crowded cities like Venice a sidewalk is rarely the right choice for an electric scooter.

Re:I am sick of California

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Austin just passed new rules for scooters & ride share bikes because they were literally dropped in the middle of the sidewalk. With that new tech, no need for racks. Drop it ANYWHERE. The authors point is true, it may start in LA/SF, but if the test marketing proves out, it is dispatched everywhere. See Uber & AV testing as just 2 examples.

Re: Venice

[Anonymous Coward]

His assertion about phones in hand is just put me off as well. The scooter drivers have a right to be on the road. If they don't follow local laws (cell phone driving laws) then ththey police will deal with it. You don't get to decide what others use. So yeah, used to it.

The problem is not Bird itself. I think it's a great idea. But I live in Bird territory, and I can tell you that a good portion of the time, it's the riders themselves that are the entitled asshats. They have no problem riding on crowded sidewalks, running stop signs, and general other fuckery (2 people riding on a Bird at the same time) at 15 MPH. There have been several collisions with pedestrians that I've read about (read Nextdoor in a Bird neighborhood). In the last week, there was a Bird collision with another car, as well as one that happened a few months ago.

The police are *sort of* dealing with the problem, but they're pretty busy handling many other issues.

Re: Venice

[mileshigh]

The scooter drivers have a right to be on the road.

They're on the sidewalk.

This is really a problem with LA traffic law & culture since it's legal to ride bicycles, skateboards and other "exclusively human-powered" vehicles on the sidewalk. This has led to the public perception that anything goes on the sidewalks.

Technically, scooters are powered and thus aren't allowed on the sidewalk, but LA cops aren't keen to wade into this so they just ignore the entire issue -- like they pretty much ignore anything that happens off the roadway. Scooters, electric-assist bicycles, etc rule the sidewalks.

Re:I am sick of California

[93 Escort Wagon]

Every week there's another article about some ridiculous new shit literally thousands of people are doing that's ruining everything, and it's absolutely never relevant outside either LA or SF.

The last story along these lines was just three days ago... and it was about Washington, DC, which is several thousand miles away from both cities you mention.

You may have gotten that impression, though, because many of the companies causing these "problems" are headquartered in California's Silicon Valley.

Re:Rude summary

[LynnwoodRooster]

I guess Westside means the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles, which he just calls "Venice" in this article.

It actually is called just "Venice", as that is the name of this neighborhood of Los Angeles. Venice Beach is the actual beach, not the name of the neighborhood.

I just got back from a 2 week trip to Pune, India

[gosand]

And they laugh at your puny scooter "problem".
It was quite fascinating to see a sea of scooters weaving in and out of traffic, with seemingly no rules. Yet I only saw one get bumped, and one near-accident. There was no road rage, they all just coexisted. It was like one of those schools of fish in the ocean: somehow they didn't run into each other.

Now, not that the scooter problem in Venice isn't a problem, it may be very annoying. This was an op-ed piece meant for the local population... how it made a tech "news" site like /. is beyond me. Well, actually not not that surprising at all. News, we hardly knew ye.

Re:Venice? Not Venice, Italy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Venice is not a town, it is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles.

Re: Is it because all the homeless

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the OP, but:

> If you're 35 and only qualified for Min Wage jobs, that is probably on you.

What part of that 100% true sentiment did you not understand in your comment about single moms who are unqualified for anything but minimum wage jobs and who chose to reproduce themselves despite not having the financial means to support the child(ren)?

Re: Venice

[Chris Mattern]

Since this is modded up as "Interesting", I'm going to assume that the parent is not making a joke and point out that it's the wrong Venice. Nothing to do with Italians, and that's why it's in the LA Times.

Re:Venice? Not Venice, Italy.

[Attila Dimedici]

I had never heard of Bird scooters before today and it was not until I got to the 2nd paragraph that I realized this was about California navel peering, not something that might be interesting going on in Italy. The reason I thought it might be interesting was because I figured that for something from Italy to make Slashdot it would have to be interesting.
I am aware of the existence of Venice, CA., but that is not what I think of first when I read "Venice".