Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:02 on 2019-08-31 Permalink Reply  

• Roman 09:43 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

  They are just a bunch of complainers.

  When horses arrived in NYC, they were chaotic. There was literally a horse poop apocalypse. Dead horses left laying around on streets. Manure was thick and covered everything.

  When cars arrived it was chaotic too. No regulations. Sharing space with horses. No signals or signs. Roads without markings.

  Yet we survived. Adapted. Made new rules and now we are ok.

• DavidH 10:20 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

  Electric scooters are not bringing the type of paradigm shift cars brought. They are probably more on the level of the 90s rollerblading craze. No need to put up with so much crap for them. Less able-bodied will find some usefulness but for everyone else it’s a novelty for a summer or two.

• Roman 14:18 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

  I like them. But I wish they were a bit cheaper. I live 15 minutes walk from the metro. It’s sometimes too far to walk and too short to take the bus.

  Scooters fit perfectly into that picture. I did use them in that context a couple of times already and found them to be very useful.

  I think if it can get mass adoption and people will start using metro more as a result it could be a huge win.

  I’m often too lazy to walk to the metro and take the car instead to the destination.

• Faiz Imam 17:58 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

  What i’m wondering is what their plans for winter are? Because the risks of having them underfoot are dramatically higher once snow falls. They better do what bixi does and get the off the street, or else come up with a much better plan for parking them.

• Kate 20:19 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

  There’s no possible way anyone will be able to ride a Lime scooter past the first real snow, anyway.

• Ian 20:58 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

  Yeah, basic logic of snow aside, insurance liabilty would be huge – batteries don’t work so great in the cold either, of course there’s no way they are going to overwinter this product.

• Ant6n 23:33 on 2019-08-31 Permalink

  @Roman I understand horses where quite a problem, not just in the beginning, but until the day they got replaced.

• Faiz Imam 18:39 on 2019-09-01 Permalink

  Just looked it up, according to this article from last winter, Lime generally keeps business as usual and work through the winter. The battery life is less, but still usable, and the scooters function on cleared paths.

  https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/12/winter-electric-batteries-scooters-lime-bird-snow-ice/578821/

  I’ve read quite a bit about battery performance in winter, and its not that big a deal. But Snow is a huge problem, and snow will be much worse than in most cities Lime has operated in.

  According to this article, Lime collects and ships away scooters from wintery cities based on low demand, but they don’t fully shut down. They have even stayed active in cities like Denver, which get as much snow as we do.

  https://www.ft.com/content/26888854-fdfa-11e8-aebf-99e208d3e521

  So I have no idea what will happen. I’m just hoping the city stays on top of it.

• Ian 13:17 on 2019-09-02 Permalink

  Well seeing as many of the city’s streets had 2 inches of ice on them last year from mid-winter right up until the spring thaw, anyone dumb enough to try to ride a scooter on that is more than welcome to, I suppose – but the liability is going to go through the roof.