You may have seen more scooters on the streets along with the blue Revel mopeds which are also popping up around town.
Currently, the initial run of 300 scooters is now 3000, a surfeit for sure according to many! Six original companies are now nine scooter companies. They run the gamut from Bird and Bolt to Lime, Lyft, Baus, Spin and so on. But keep in mind, the 3000 scooters are spread out over all of District 2, they aren't all in Coconut Grove.
The scooter program is still in an initial pilot program and the City Commission will discuss their future. I'm not quite sure how they can be eliminated now, especially because of all the money they are bringing to the district, but two commissioners Monolo Reyes and Joe Carollo are opposed to the scooters.
I've heard complaints myself, but I'm still not quite sure what the issue is. I hear of people being run into by scooters, but I don't know if anyone who has witnessed this and don't know of anyone who knows anyone who has witnessed this.
As more and more parking spaces are taken away around the village, different means of transportation are needed. I see the scooters used constantly, so people do use them for short trips. One guy in my neighborhood in the North Grove, takes a scooter to work in the Center Grove, daily.
The scooters are currently only in our district, District 2, so I'm not sure why the other commissioners are receiving complaints or why it's their business what goes on in District 2.
Our District Commissioner Ken Russell is a friend to the scooters. He has requested that better safety measures be taken. I do see children on scooters with parents, you know, two to a scooter, which is not safe. And I do see scooters all over town, but never had one obstruct my path.
The pilot program is extended until February 14. Commissioner Russell would like to see the nine scooter companies whittled down to three or four.
I've heard from people who say the only see kids fooling around on the scooters, but I beg to differ. I've mostly seen adults using them for more than just fun, they are using them for transportation. Stand in the center of the Grove at lunch time and you can see people zooming back and forth picking up lunch - a lot of the office workers and construction workers use them for this purpose. Tourist like them, too.
I often wonder how these are different than masses of cyclists taking over the streets. There are more cyclists on the streets daily than scooter riders. Should we remove bicycles?
Recently the Lime scooter company laid off 14% of its workforce and shut down operations in 12 markets. So the companies themselves may solve a lot of concerns through survival of the fittest.
As for the Revel mopeds, I've seen a few of them being used, but I know they are more strict with sign-ups. I was with a friend who was excited to sign up last week. We had lunch and then we walked down the block where we came upon a Revel. He filled in the form on the app, took a photo of himself, sent in his drivers license and did it all, only to be sent a message that the application is being reviewed. So they apparently do process and check out people who sign up for them.
My friend ended up walking a block away and hopped on an orange Bolt scooter and zoomed off, he had already signed up for that and had been using them already.
On January 17, the scooter companies will be advised as to what the city would like to see from them in the way of safety changes.
A big problem that I see is parking. Last weekend someone left a blue scooter at the entrance to my building, on the sidewalk. The police had to be called. Today, when I went to CVS, there was a regular orange scooter parked on top of the lines next to a handicapped parking space, on the ramp. So if a walker or wheelchair was needed, the scooter would have impeded it from going on the ramp.
ReplyDeleteComing home from work last week, traffic was at a crawl on LeJeune Road near Poinciana going north. It turned out there were 3 teen-aged boys riding scooters three across in the northbound lane of LeJeune. The boys were hooting and swerving and laughing. My heart was in my mouth that they were going to get seriously hurt by falling off the scooters and getting run over, or by swerving into oncoming traffic in the southbound lane. They were holding up traffic for blocks and blocks. This was at rush hour. I think the streets and sidewalks are neither safe nor efficient for riding these scooters. They're dangerous.
ReplyDeletePeople are leaving them anywhere they please! They left a couple of them in my driveway. I had to move them to the side, all the while beeping. What a nuisance! I live around Day Ave and Virginia St
ReplyDeleteWe need real public transportation, officials along with dimwit mayor Carlos Gimenez think they have to reinvent the wheel with these micro transportation gimmicks. Real transportation happens by rail all over the world, RAIL, not buses, not Uber, nor drones, self-driving cars, scooters and skateboards, which will all be stuck in traffic. Only rail has moved people in large numbers in great cities from home to work and back and forth to school and to entertainment and businesses uninterrupted and rapidly. The only obstacle to sane transportation and the cause of exponentially worsening traffic in Miami is the government and lobbyists.
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