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Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

This is such a boondoggle. I rarely see any birds, lime bikes, orange bikes, ofos, etc. parked in places other than off to the side of the sidewalk, or in a bike rack. When I do, I move them.

Most people, generally speaking, are good people. They put bikes where they're supposed to be, they put scooters where they're supposed to be etc. It isn't just enlightened tech commenters who know that a bike should go in a bike rack.

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This hasn't been my experience at all when walking around Santa Monica. It seems like about half the time Birds are parked in a reasonable place - in an alcove designed for bike parking, on the edge of the sidewalk on the Promenade, off to the side next to a door - and the rest are just... random. It's not at all uncommon to see three or four Birds parked in the middle of the sidewalk in front of a popular store or restaurant.

The last time I was over there, it seemed like someone was going around and purposefully knocking them over: https://scontent-dfw5-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/1cd4296b10424b53...

I know this might be a radical proposal but have you considered, when encountering a bicycle blocking part of a sidewalk, moving slightly to the left. I admit its a crazy proposal but it might help you while you’re waiting for the state to implement the death penalty for scooter infractions.

wont work for many disabled people

This might be the case for where you live, but I've see dozens of Lime bikes recently around the Boston area (not in Boston proper, but in Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea, Everett, etc.) that are just on sidewalks. The main problem is that there aren't really a ton of bike racks around. Usually when I bike somewhere, even in Boston proper, I have to search for a bit to find a bike rack. I imagine it's similar for other cities that don't really have the existing bike rack infrastructure.

Do you mean in the middle of the sidewalk, or to the side, against a wall? The former seems overtly malicious, the latter is a completely normal place to park a bike in cities where people ride bikes.

You must not live in San Francisco, where I saw multiple scooters every day parked in the middle of sidewalks or otherwise in the way of pedestrians. Until the city temporarily banned them.

These scooters need docking stations and the users parking them illegally need to be handed hefty fines, just as a motorist would be fined for parking their car illegally.

In Melbourne, our dockless bike provider, oBike, had to pull out because the council threatened them with fines for littering.

People just couldn't help throwing the bikes on train tracks, or in the river, or in trees, or basically anywhere that wasn't a bike rack. I don't think I ever saw an oBike in a bike rack.

This is not true. They came to an arrangements with the Melbourne city council, and hired people to go around and tidy it up.

They pulled out because too many people were dumping bikes in rivers and train tracks, and they weren't making enough money. They were reasonably popular.

Melbourne is a car addicted city though, and it is difficult to get anyone here to see an alternative.

You're right, I was oversimplifying the situation. The council threatened oBike with fines, so they came to arrangements to have cleanup crews, which then cost too much money, causing them to pull out.

I wouldn't say oBikes were reasonably popular. The only people I ever saw riding them were tourists in St Kilda, and homeless people who had broken the locks off them.

I'm surprised they don't have a technical solution -- like, say, have it take a photo from the scooter when you log out to validate you put it in a good spot. (Or gps if they have drop-off points, etc.)

Lime starting doing _exactly_ this in Denver before pulling out at the behest of the police department.

Bird requires this.

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