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> But we know how that goes and nobody actually will care about the scooter enough to return or take care of it.

Looking at countries like the Netherlands this is not true. Train stations have rentable bikes which are always available in sufficient quantities.

> So what do we do? Uber-Tesla-Subway pods. I call it by phone, it shows up to my house, either transfers me or lets me dock with the subway and then brings me the last mile just to leave me there for the next thing it has to do.

Individual 'pods' will just never be a sufficiently scalable & ecologically friendly solution for any real city. There's just no way that having several hundred kilos of metal & plastic per individual, along with the space requirements (esp for safety) works.

On the other hand, autonomous & shared 'cars' could replace individual vehicles for hauling / transporting as peak usage would be much lower than for transit.

well its not neccesairly a pod per person but more a pod the city owns that is shared when i need it. Here in Berlin we do have bikes and scooters the like but its the same with car sharing. Sometimes you still will have to walk 15 minutes to your car (and thats the problem i mostly see with the scooters)

> Looking at countries like the Netherlands this is not true. Train stations have rentable bikes

Only for residents of NL, I believe (which in no way invalidates your point and I agree with everything you wrote).

One idea is to put a deposit fee on the scooter, like Michigan has for bottles and cans. Therefore, the choice of whether to dump the scooter or return it is just based on your willingness to pay. Meanwhile, collecting and returning scooters could be a source of some cash income for folks who are otherwise hard to employ.

I believe the main reason for the dumped scooters in cities that had them, was that the scooters were an investment boondoggle. It was easier to create fake growth by converting investment money into new scooters, than to actually figure out how to make it work.

I live in a mid sized city (about 250k in US midwest) and a network of bike routes evolved largely on its own, with a bit of help from the city and county. Cars prefer the fast roads, bikes take the slow roads. The speed limit (35 mph ~ 60 kph) is high enough to make up for time lost at stoplights, but of no benefit to cyclists. Instead, we find our way through the narrower neighborhood streets that have relatively little traffic.

That works everywhere except some peculiar intersections, and the dense central district. In those places, the city is creating separated bike lanes when they have to rebuild the roadway anyway. And a number of old rail lines have been turned into bike paths -- too bad for trains but great for bikes. Destruction of roads by the freeze-thaw cycle gives us a chance to renew our urban planning ideas every few years!

> Here in Berlin you can easily get with the bike through the entire city. If you survive that is a different topic, but you could if you wanted!

I live and bike through the city year-round. I think the only part of the city where I have to share the road with cars is Mitte. But like any sane person I'm never there

for the majority of people it should also be fine to walk (yes, walk!) from their appartment to the next bus/tram/subway station around the corner.

I do bike through the city quite regularly. The city also has wonderful public transit. I’m not sure what more we actually need here, except 24/7 service on weekdays.