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Comment by apotheothesomai | Hacker News Reader

The city is just trying to ensure that the vehicles don't end up abandoned by riders all over the place. This has been a problem with bike and scooter services in many cities globally.

They are giving the companies plenty of time to respond with a plan to address that issue. They're not going to be shut down. They just need to be more responsible for the impact on public places, because we humans are sadly too self-focused to b conscientious.

Hell, the city will probably build more bike racks to accommodate them.

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I think it’s bigger than that. There’s a massive FUD meme around dockless technology: the only time it’s in the news is to show the random landfills a few of them end up in, ignoring the 99% that have made millions of lives easier. Dockless bikeshare went from 0 to 200 million riders in just two years, in a country where everybody already owned a bike. This is a technology that makes cities more accessible in a way you can’t imagine til you experience it. But people point to a few left out of place and tell us it’s going to kill our grannies.

  a few left out of place

Dockless bikes are, by definition, all left out of place.

If only people could store them with ease at the side of the street; perhaps paying a fee while they use the land.

You could travel around the city, leave your bike there, and come back and continue your journey!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking

  store them with ease at the side of the street; perhaps paying a fee while they use the land

Then it's no longer a sharing model; it's a "I want 24/7 control of a bike but only pay for while I'm riding it and park it anywhere without consequences" model.

Which would be handy, but it wouldn't scale well from a business standpoint.

For what it's worth that is exactly how car sharing works in my city and it's doing well, and growing.

> This has been a problem with bike and scooter services in many cities globally.

This is hilarious. People are mowed down by cars every day, but somehow scooters being left in annoying areas is the issue?

This isn't a case of a small and occasional nuisance. This _Atlantic_ piece has already been cited in-thread, but it deserves a re-airing:

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversup...

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2018/03/b...

An image search turns up more instances:

https://www.google.com/search?tbs=imgo%3A1&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=...

And: for the record, I bike, and have done so for decades. It's fair to recognise real problems, however, and not trivialise or dismiss them uncharitably.

Case in point: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversup...

Dockless cars take much more space and even hit people every day. https://slate.com/business/2018/04/astounding-photos-capture...

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