Liam 
In today’s lesson about integrating public transport, new technologies and private providers, and accessibility in urban design, here are two pictures: one is a kerb bus stop and the other is a major pedestrian underpass
Mar 25 at 10:03pmWeb
Show threadLiam 2d ago

All transport modes impose some kind of externality. Trains need marshalling yards and a permanent way, and have a really serious ongoing maintenance budget. For public modes that’s planned in: bus routes get more roadwork, stops get isolated from parking, it’s accounted for.

For *private* modes like these there’s every incentive for companies to offload the externality (parking) onto the public, and specifically the spaces of the people least likely to be able to step over a tangle of bicycles.

Show threadLiam 2d ago
The more desirable and economically useful a space is the more likely there are to be real and probably irreconcilable tensions between parties that want to use it. That’s why there need to be planners about this kind of stuff, because otherwise the most bloody minded party always wins
Show threadLiam 2d ago
It’s not necessarily a capitalism problem either, it’s a fundamental problem about space and power. A Czech friend told me the story about Prague where in Communist times there were special traffic lanes and parking spots and even streets for Party officials and government cars; one of the first things the elected government did was abolish them
Show threadJohnny ‘Decimal’ Noble1d ago

@liamvhogan Governments – at the local level – need to take this seriously. It can be done.

#Canberra, Australia, had two e-scooter companies. They'd set limits on the number of scooters each could deploy. One company (Beam, 'the purple ones') ignored those limits and the city was strewn with their scooters.

So the city council didn't renew their contract. On a Tuesday. And it expired on Sunday, and they told them all the scooters had to be gone, removed, disappeared. By the end of the week. And they were. And that was that.

We can 'fight back'. It's not even a fight! It's just a well-written contract and a local authority that has the guts to stand by it.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-04/act-govenment-bans-beam-mobility-escooters/104310798

Beam Mobility given Friday the 13th deadline to remove its e-scooters from Canberra streets after compliance investigation

The ACT Government won't renew Beam Mobility's e-scooter permit after an investigation found the firm manipulated data about its fleet.  

Show threadǝlqɯnɹ uoɯᴉS2d ago

@liamvhogan And yet in Paris there are orderly, sensible places to park the Vélib bikes. Taking up car spaces mostly. And if you don't park the bike in one, the clock keeps ticking and you keep paying for the bike.

But that means sacrificing parking for cars. Unacceptable, obviously.

Show threadGus1d ago

@liamvhogan Shanghai did a massive crack-down in around 2018 after it got ridiculous, kilometres of bikes blocking every subway entrance.

Bikes parked outside of designated share bike areas (painted yellow squares) got loaded en masse into trucks sent by the city and immediately scrapped, and IIRC they also fined the companies for each of them.

I don't know how it looks there now, but it felt like the appropriate level of bloody-mindedness.

Show threadAdam2d ago
@liamvhogan everywhere these bikes are they are a problem. It speaks to the capture of councils by capital that they are permitted to operate like this.
Show threadLiam 2d ago
@Kels_316 it’s a typical verticality problem: the obvious solution is for *some* level of government to say, you want to operate, sure, you need to plan for dedicated parking and storage (like every bus company does). But is it Councils or the State government? Both think it’s the other one because there’s no ‘private hire electric bicycle’ powers set out in legislation yet
Show threadLiam 2d ago
@Kels_316 [making the companies spend on parking infrastructure would seriously, seriously affect their bottom line]
Show threadAdam2d ago
@liamvhogan yes this is where the rubber meets the road. Cities should be responsible for this stuff, but they're run by the worst people in those cities.
Show threadJustified Ancient of Moomin2d ago
@Kels_316 @liamvhogan the stupid thing is that this is all avoidable: in Montreal they have a municipally-owned bikeshare system called Bixi. They have actual parking stations, located in on-street parking bays. When you ride, you have to go from one Bixi station to another, otherwise you lose your deposit (which you make when you sign up for the system). You don’t need an app to use them.
Crucially, no private hire scooter or bike company is permitted to compete with them, so those companies can’t clutter up the footpaths.
It is so well-loved in Montreal that people write books about how much they love Bixi.
Show threadAdam2d ago
@ThermiteBeGiants @liamvhogan yes but I refer to my earlier comments about who runs cities, at least in this country.
Show threadJustified Ancient of Moomin2d ago
@Kels_316 @liamvhogan I agree. Melbourne had an “official” docked bike share system but cancelled it just before e-bikes took off. Really silly stuff imo
Show threadLiam 2d ago
@ThermiteBeGiants @Kels_316 the actual technology is excellent. Imagine telling someone thirty years ago you could hire an electric bike that pedals for you. It’s just the problem is spatial
Show threadAdam2d ago
@ThermiteBeGiants @liamvhogan I was in brisbane last weekend and the suburbs are littered with those lime bikes and scooters.
Show threadMike [SEC=OFFICIAL]2d ago
@ThermiteBeGiants @Kels_316 @liamvhogan the thing that really gets me is how often you see those things "parked" across tactile paving.
Show threadAdam2d ago
@mike @ThermiteBeGiants @liamvhogan it feels like boomer energy to complain about them, but c'mon!
Show threadMike [SEC=OFFICIAL]2d ago
@Kels_316 @ThermiteBeGiants @liamvhogan once you start noticing that one thing, your boomer brain grows three sizes.
Show threadBiggles 20X6!2d ago
@Kels_316 @ThermiteBeGiants @liamvhogan "Private Companies Are More Efficient" ( neolib rent-seeking enablement intensifies)
Show threadJustified Ancient of Moomin2d ago
@Kels_316 @liamvhogan also: for about 4 months of the year Montreal is basically snowed-under; people still ride bikes during that time but for Bixi bikes it would cause way too much rusting and premature degradation. So they pull up all the skids on tilt-trucks during that time, do heavy maintenance on the bikes and look at all the data about which Bixi stations were used the most. Then when spring comes around, they deploy the Bixi stations in new locations where they think they’ll be used the most based on that data. It’s really cool stuff, and it is municipally-run!
Show threadAdam2d ago
@ThermiteBeGiants @liamvhogan this is the future leftists want
Show threadJustified Ancient of Moomin2d ago
@Kels_316 @liamvhogan 
Show threadJustified Ancient of Moomin2d ago
@liamvhogan @Kels_316 in my LGA we have recently started an “exclusive” trial of these stupid hire bikes with Lime/Uber. They are supposed to be parked in designated “virtual” parking bays, usually on nature strips. Is this done? Fuck no. The bikes are vandalised and dumped all over footpaths
Show threadAdam2d ago
@ThermiteBeGiants @liamvhogan where we lived in Melbs was on a major bike trail network to/from the CBD and these things were scattered everywhere and usually ended up in the river.
Show threadColin2d ago

@ThermiteBeGiants @liamvhogan @Kels_316 They should be returned to their natural habitat: The Yarra.

I loathe these abuses of public space for private profit. Instead of building better cycling infrastructure and public transport.

Show threadHugh2d ago

@liamvhogan
@Kels_316 Sometimes it goes the other way though. Melbourne City Council tried to completely ban "dockless" sharebikes at one point and the state government manoeuvred to prevent them because something something green transport.

Yarra City finally got something right though, on scooters: "Sure you can operate here, but we will be providing no subsidy and in fact here's the license fee". Suddenly it was unprofitable and both companies pulled out all their scooters the next week.

Show threadAdam2d ago
@hugh @liamvhogan they have all the levers they need but are normally incentivised to not pull them.
Show threadJulie1d ago
@Kels_316 @hugh @liamvhogan our council has started providing corals that the bikes and scooters are forced to park in by geofencing. The littering of footpaths isn't inevitable.
Show threadJulie1d ago
@hugh @liamvhogan @Kels_316 sure but councils are subsidising many forms of transport, which would decrease if the subsidy stopped.
Show threadneoluddite2d ago
@liamvhogan * in the spaces of people least able to hurl them into the road
Show threadPhil Betts2d ago
@liamvhogan these are SO annoying. Broadway footpaths are choked at the best of times.
Show threadFrank’s Ting2d ago
@liamvhogan i have complained regularly to councils and tfNSW about pavements around bus stops being made inaccessible by these things. If I find them blocking footpaths now I just put them on the road where they belong.
Show threadGus2d ago
@liamvhogan Physical "flood the zone" VC-subsidised business models remain popular, I see
Show threadJim Woulfe2d ago
@liamvhogan Makes sense. Slowing down pedestrian traffic at major choke points incentivises the pedestrians to hop on a bike.
Show threadMike Lynch2d ago
@liamvhogan whenever I see this I imagine a kind of street sweeper which sucks them up and emits tidy crushed cubes
Show threadI love this, so I1d ago
@liamvhogan see also: Shanghai, circa 2017 (approximately when oBike style hire schemes were all the rage)
Show threadLiam 1d ago
@jpm amazing
Show threads0 Is Not A Sysadmin1d ago
@liamvhogan @jpm I was partly responsible for negotiating with these bike companies for City of Sydney for New Years Eve in 2017/2018. They were pretty flummoxed when their ‘gifts’ were rejected, and incredibly uninterested in cooperating.
Unsurprisingly in the space of a year 2 had gone out of business and another cropped up. What a stupid scheme.
Show threadthefathippy1d ago

@liamvhogan

I haven't hired a bike here, but have elsewhere. In the US, bikes were unlocked from storage racks with a credit card, & I stopped being charged only when I locked it back into another storage rack. Seems *fairly* simple, & I saw very few "abandoned" bikes (unlike in Sydney).

I think something similar applied with borrie bikes in London. In Spain & Amsterdam we hired from, and returned the bikes to a shop.