Liam 1d ago
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
Show threadLiam 1d 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 
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
Mar 25 at 10:32pmWeb
Show threadLiam 1d 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 uoɯᴉS1d 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.