Hacker News Reader

You have to remember that vans drive around these cities collecting and maintaining these scattered scooters.

There is a large auto footprint for each scooter that needs to be serviced, as well as for the people servicing them.

I'm still not convinced. Maybe that raises the footprint, but I can't see that offsetting the benefits. Sort of like taking the bus - yeah, the bus might be empty sometimes, like at night, but during the day it's able to take hundreds of cars off of the street.

I mean... you're likely talking about 1 van per 100+ scooters. The number of replaced auto trips is massive, especially in and out of urban centers like Austin that aren't as walkable.

If you live in SF, NYC, or Boston? Sure, they're mainly replacing public transit or walking, but they have a huge impact in the less walkable areas like Austin, San Jose, Seattle, or Los Angeles.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com