5 ms·

Rental scooters/bikes cover last mile service very well in my experience. I use transit a great deal more than I would if I had to walk so much on either end of

Rental scooters/bikes cover last mile service very well in my experience. I use transit a great deal more than I would if I had to walk so much on either end of the trip.

EA-3167 7d ago
Let me guess… you live somewhere warm and mostly dry? Probably on the younger side and don’t have any kids.
- marssaxman 7d ago
  Seattle, late middle age. Kid just started high school. My wife has a large e-bike with a passenger seat, but replaced it with a cargo basket a couple years ago after the kiddo outgrew it. I didn't say that scooters were a solution for everyone, you may note. I don't think there ought to be one solution for everyone, but given the option of micromobility, I really have no use for autonomous vehicles.
- toasty228 7d ago
  I'm in a 200 inhabitants village in eastern Europe, we have 3 bus stops in the village (so at most you're 10min away from a stop), the bus goes to the closest city every hour from 4:30 to 22:30 except on Sunday (every two hours from 6 to 21), from there you can take a train to every major city in the country, my neighbor is a 76 year old widow who goes to the city by bus regularly and who bikes around a lot. Half of the kids go to school via this bus, many people go to work with it. It's free for kids and retired people too. When public transportation is designed properly it works fine for the extreme vast majority of people, and taking a taxi for the last mile if you're disabled, obese, lazy, etc. will cost you less than owning and maintaining a car. I think you're coping, like most car owners, we bought the propaganda of freedom &Co and now we're all collectively stuck in this dumb system in which every household need to own two 2500kg hunks of steel and plastic to transport 70kg of meat 1% of the time and use public space the other 99%
  - PorciiVorbesc 7d ago
    >I think you're coping, like most car owners, we bought the propaganda of freedom &Co When the bus (in your example) runs on a hourly schedule, while your car is always there when you spontaneously need it, then that freedom is real and not just propaganda. I did this type of commute before where I had to catch the bus to work, which was also once every hour, and the anxiety during my early morning routine to not miss the bus was crazy since missing it meant one more hour of wait, compared to the freedom of jumping in my car without a fixed schedule while also saving 1h/day of time compared to the public transit, the difference was night and day, not propaganda. Now if I had a train/subway to work, where I could sit down, and it ran every 15 minutes or less, then yeah, fuck driving and public transport all the way, but nobody sits in traffic for fun, but because of all options for their commute, driving is the better option.
    - toasty228 7d ago
      Then let's keep on fucking the planet, and let's keep on moving 70kg of meat over 30km per day on average with 2500kg of steal, 400kg of battery, etc. super efficient and sustainable!
      - PorciiVorbesc 6d ago
        YES, unless you wanna build me public transport from your tax money, let's! If you want people to stop fucking the planet with driving, then you need to stop fucking their lives with hellish public transport commutes and improve it till it's bearable. I have only one life on this planet, and it's much shorter than the planet's life, therefore I need to make it a good and comfortable one while it lasts not sacrifice it for nothing, while China and India keep lighting the planet on fire and my boss is chauffeured in luxury cars and has 3 vacation homes. You need to (have the wealthy) lead by example and sacrifice themselves too before you ask the same from the working class! If you wanna save the planet, then first talk to China and India, talk to politicians and corporate billionaires with private jets and yachts making a killing from forcing everyone into office 5 days/week and dodging taxes so that cities lack funds for infrastructure, not to the working class keeping the world running and feeding their families.
- sensanaty 7d ago
  The famously warm and dry countries of Norway[1] and Finland[2]! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCedclz03uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCedclz03uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
  - EA-3167 7d ago
    The famously small conurbations and the reality that Finns and Norwegians only are able to bike part of the year. They have cars and public transit for the rest. I'd add that these discussions tend to handwave the reality of safety when you're on an open platform movie at high speeds, the reality that not all people are physically able, and a lot of others issues that the vocal "cars are the devil" folks don't engage seriously with. It's getting really old, and it increasingly feels like trying to reason with the "kill all pitbulls" crowd.
    - Fricken 7d ago
      Scandanavians have been getting around without cars for millenia. Nobody had even heard of a car until just over a century ago. Car dependent infrastructure is definitely not helpful for the physically disabled, as well as those too young, too old, and too poor to drive a car. This and a lot of other issues that the vocal and active "cars aren't the devil" crowd don't engage seriously with. It's getting really old, and increasingly feels like trying to reason with the "Pitbulls make great family dogs" crowd.
      - EA-3167 7d ago
        "People have been giving birth since the first humans existed, why go to a hospital?" "People have been living with viruses for all of history and beyond, why use vaccines?" "People have been walking for millions of years, why use a bike or a scooter?"
        Fricken 7d ago
        Hospitals at the dawn of the 19th century in Europe were generally places only poor people in desperate situations went to give birth because they were hives of disease transmission. The notion that doctors should wash their hands between treating one patient and the next was met with ridicule. Doctors were insulted by the suggestion that their hands might be unclean, so mortality rates for childbirth in hospitals were horrendous. The idea of handwashing emerged and died many times before it finally caught on, and then only at the behest of vigorous campaigning over a generation. There is a long list of hidden costs and negative externalities associated with car dependent sprawl as well, they are well studied, but nobody want to hear that their hands are unclean. This idea one should be washing their hands a dozens times per shift is patently absurd. Physicians would be wasting hours a day just washing their hands! How would we be able to treat all these patients?
vrosas 7d ago
Americans would rather die than give up their air conditioned bubbles on wheels. I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries.
- alightsoul 7d ago
  They are very popular in china, such as the Wuling ev. In America, they are afraid of them because they are small. They want big cars to have a large crumple area in a crash.
  - Zambyte 7d ago
    And ideally enough mass to violently crush their neighbors.
- marssaxman 7d ago
  Regulation kills the value proposition. You are basically describing a "neighborhood electric vehicle", but US law limits them to 25 mph, and it is not legal to drive them on many arterials, so they are only really useful inside communities which were designed for them.
- efavdb 7d ago
  That’s the smart car
- radarsat1 7d ago
  > I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries. I see these all the time here in the Netherlands. Very small cars. Some on the road and even smaller ones people drive on the bike paths. Small motorized vehicles, ebikes and scooters share the paths with regular bikes which works because they have usually at least two lanes, so they are more like tiny roads. Very handy.
- warkdarrior 7d ago
  > I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries. Because they are completely unsafe against a twice-the-height, multi-ton Ford pickup truck.
edgarvaldes 7d ago
>Rental scooters/bikes cover last mile service very well in my experience. Not so great for family trips, shopping around, etc.
- ricardobeat 7d ago
  Those (rare) occasions are when you rent a car. You can do it many times per year before it becomes a financially worse option.
  - daedrdev 7d ago
    It’s currently 95 degrees. No thanks
    - deleted 7d ago
      [deleted]
  - nonethewiser 7d ago
    Someone does not have kids.
    - deleted 6d ago
      [deleted]

Rental scooters/bikes cover last mile service very well in my experience. I use transit a great deal more than I would if I had to walk so much on either end of the trip.

EA-3167 7d ago

Let me guess… you live somewhere warm and mostly dry? Probably on the younger side and don’t have any kids.

marssaxman 7d ago
Seattle, late middle age. Kid just started high school. My wife has a large e-bike with a passenger seat, but replaced it with a cargo basket a couple years ago after the kiddo outgrew it. I didn't say that scooters were a solution for everyone, you may note. I don't think there ought to be one solution for everyone, but given the option of micromobility, I really have no use for autonomous vehicles.
toasty228 7d ago
I'm in a 200 inhabitants village in eastern Europe, we have 3 bus stops in the village (so at most you're 10min away from a stop), the bus goes to the closest city every hour from 4:30 to 22:30 except on Sunday (every two hours from 6 to 21), from there you can take a train to every major city in the country, my neighbor is a 76 year old widow who goes to the city by bus regularly and who bikes around a lot. Half of the kids go to school via this bus, many people go to work with it. It's free for kids and retired people too. When public transportation is designed properly it works fine for the extreme vast majority of people, and taking a taxi for the last mile if you're disabled, obese, lazy, etc. will cost you less than owning and maintaining a car. I think you're coping, like most car owners, we bought the propaganda of freedom &Co and now we're all collectively stuck in this dumb system in which every household need to own two 2500kg hunks of steel and plastic to transport 70kg of meat 1% of the time and use public space the other 99%
- PorciiVorbesc 7d ago
  >I think you're coping, like most car owners, we bought the propaganda of freedom &Co When the bus (in your example) runs on a hourly schedule, while your car is always there when you spontaneously need it, then that freedom is real and not just propaganda. I did this type of commute before where I had to catch the bus to work, which was also once every hour, and the anxiety during my early morning routine to not miss the bus was crazy since missing it meant one more hour of wait, compared to the freedom of jumping in my car without a fixed schedule while also saving 1h/day of time compared to the public transit, the difference was night and day, not propaganda. Now if I had a train/subway to work, where I could sit down, and it ran every 15 minutes or less, then yeah, fuck driving and public transport all the way, but nobody sits in traffic for fun, but because of all options for their commute, driving is the better option.
  - toasty228 7d ago
    Then let's keep on fucking the planet, and let's keep on moving 70kg of meat over 30km per day on average with 2500kg of steal, 400kg of battery, etc. super efficient and sustainable!
    - PorciiVorbesc 6d ago
      YES, unless you wanna build me public transport from your tax money, let's! If you want people to stop fucking the planet with driving, then you need to stop fucking their lives with hellish public transport commutes and improve it till it's bearable. I have only one life on this planet, and it's much shorter than the planet's life, therefore I need to make it a good and comfortable one while it lasts not sacrifice it for nothing, while China and India keep lighting the planet on fire and my boss is chauffeured in luxury cars and has 3 vacation homes. You need to (have the wealthy) lead by example and sacrifice themselves too before you ask the same from the working class! If you wanna save the planet, then first talk to China and India, talk to politicians and corporate billionaires with private jets and yachts making a killing from forcing everyone into office 5 days/week and dodging taxes so that cities lack funds for infrastructure, not to the working class keeping the world running and feeding their families.
sensanaty 7d ago
The famously warm and dry countries of Norway[1] and Finland[2]! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCedclz03uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCedclz03uI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
- EA-3167 7d ago
  The famously small conurbations and the reality that Finns and Norwegians only are able to bike part of the year. They have cars and public transit for the rest. I'd add that these discussions tend to handwave the reality of safety when you're on an open platform movie at high speeds, the reality that not all people are physically able, and a lot of others issues that the vocal "cars are the devil" folks don't engage seriously with. It's getting really old, and it increasingly feels like trying to reason with the "kill all pitbulls" crowd.
  - Fricken 7d ago
    Scandanavians have been getting around without cars for millenia. Nobody had even heard of a car until just over a century ago. Car dependent infrastructure is definitely not helpful for the physically disabled, as well as those too young, too old, and too poor to drive a car. This and a lot of other issues that the vocal and active "cars aren't the devil" crowd don't engage seriously with. It's getting really old, and increasingly feels like trying to reason with the "Pitbulls make great family dogs" crowd.
    - EA-3167 7d ago
      "People have been giving birth since the first humans existed, why go to a hospital?" "People have been living with viruses for all of history and beyond, why use vaccines?" "People have been walking for millions of years, why use a bike or a scooter?"
      - Fricken 7d ago
        Hospitals at the dawn of the 19th century in Europe were generally places only poor people in desperate situations went to give birth because they were hives of disease transmission. The notion that doctors should wash their hands between treating one patient and the next was met with ridicule. Doctors were insulted by the suggestion that their hands might be unclean, so mortality rates for childbirth in hospitals were horrendous. The idea of handwashing emerged and died many times before it finally caught on, and then only at the behest of vigorous campaigning over a generation. There is a long list of hidden costs and negative externalities associated with car dependent sprawl as well, they are well studied, but nobody want to hear that their hands are unclean. This idea one should be washing their hands a dozens times per shift is patently absurd. Physicians would be wasting hours a day just washing their hands! How would we be able to treat all these patients?

vrosas 7d ago

Americans would rather die than give up their air conditioned bubbles on wheels. I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries.

alightsoul 7d ago
They are very popular in china, such as the Wuling ev. In America, they are afraid of them because they are small. They want big cars to have a large crumple area in a crash.
- Zambyte 7d ago
  And ideally enough mass to violently crush their neighbors.
marssaxman 7d ago
Regulation kills the value proposition. You are basically describing a "neighborhood electric vehicle", but US law limits them to 25 mph, and it is not legal to drive them on many arterials, so they are only really useful inside communities which were designed for them.
efavdb 7d ago
That’s the smart car
radarsat1 7d ago
> I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries. I see these all the time here in the Netherlands. Very small cars. Some on the road and even smaller ones people drive on the bike paths. Small motorized vehicles, ebikes and scooters share the paths with regular bikes which works because they have usually at least two lanes, so they are more like tiny roads. Very handy.
warkdarrior 7d ago
> I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries. Because they are completely unsafe against a twice-the-height, multi-ton Ford pickup truck.

edgarvaldes 7d ago

>Rental scooters/bikes cover last mile service very well in my experience. Not so great for family trips, shopping around, etc.

ricardobeat 7d ago
Those (rare) occasions are when you rent a car. You can do it many times per year before it becomes a financially worse option.
- daedrdev 7d ago
  It’s currently 95 degrees. No thanks
  - deleted 7d ago
    [deleted]
- nonethewiser 7d ago
  Someone does not have kids.
  - deleted 6d ago
    [deleted]