Who thought this was a good idea?

Whoever in the city council who thought scooter rental was a good idea, needs to get out of town more. If they had traveled to any major city within the last 5 or so years they would have seen what a mess these scooters really are. They litter the streets and sidewalks in every city have been to. It really makes the cities look trashy.

On my short drive to work every morning I can usually count 4 to 5 scooters sitting on sidewalks or thrown into yards of residents or commercial properties. As my family and I walked down main street this weekend we had to dodge 3 sets of riders ridding down the sidewalks and one group blowing threw a crosswalk when we had the green light to cross. Daniella Acosta Stated

“We’ll be using geofencing as a way to delineate where these can operate or not,” said Acosta. “That will include users in their apps being informed of that in addition to the signage. Also, if a user were to get onto the sidewalk, the devices would eventually disengage and they would have to essentially move away from the sidewalk if they wanted to resume their trip or have their device be able to function again.” https://www.nbc11news.com/2022/08/15/grand-junction-city-moving-forward-with-micromobility-pilot/

Another quote from a different article,

“The GPS on a scooter is what data scientists call “noisy,” a bit like a fuzzy radio signal. In ideal conditions, it can guess its location within about 16 feet. But that guess can jump moment to moment, adding a layer of frustration to barriers that, by design, appear suddenly out of thin air.” https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-16/geofencing-scooters-westside-bird-lime

Seems to me the “geofencing” does not work. 16 feet from the road along main street is the sidewalk. So even in “ideal conditions”, they would still be able to ride on the sidewalks.

I have read many articles about these scooters and none of them have any positives. From people getting run over while exiting a place of business to people crashing them, going to the hospital and then not paying the bill (look up cost of scooters to hospitals). All City council would have had to do is read a few news articles to see that these things are absolutely terrible. Terrible for the health and safety of riders and pedestrians, and a terribly ugly eyesore for our beautiful city.