I did the same thing. 
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Email from Bird: *We aren’t ready to say goodbye just yet. Bird will continue to fly in Raleigh through the end of July. Take a ride with us to explore Raleigh or get a breath of fresh air. We’ll save our goodbyes for later. *
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…
Yeah I thought it was odd they were still a van offloading scooters on the sidewalk next to One Glenwood on Sunday being their original shutdown is so close.
Ironically neither the mechanics nor chargers were told about the extension.
“Micro-Mobility”, I haven’t herd that one yet. This will only be a reduction of 150 total scooters from the current status at 650 between both companies now. With the potential for a total of 1,000 if “the company meets safety, usage and “certain conduct” measures, it could possibly be allowed to deploy 1,000 scooters.”
Here’s my favorite quote from the article. :
“Like Bird and Lime, Gotcha did say the city’s $300 fee per scooter was high and asked for “some relief on costs,” Moore said. Staff members didn’t recommend that change for the first 500 scooters but said they will revisit lowering the fee for the next 500 scooters.”
I believe the unc bikeshare is by gotcha.
I’m sure Gotcha will be happy to pay the fee and be the sole provider of scooters for the city.
Additionally, it looks like they attempt to get people to pick up/drop off the scooters in designated locations.
The fact they have to be “docked” at a hub is definitely more inconvenient then Lime or Bird.
But, better for the Pearl-clutchers…
“These darned scooters littered on the streets ruin the view from my Yukon XL!”
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How is this even going to work downtown? Designate a couple of spaces in a parking lot for them? Or just have a ton of “hubs” rendering the whole concept pointless.
So you mean people will have to actually walk a bit to get to their destination? [Clutches pearls and shudders at the thought of getting to a destination under one’s own bodily power. The possibility of sweat and effort, dear heavens!]
I think having designated hubs will alleviate a lot of the idiocy of people leaving scooters haphazardly in the middle of sidewalks, roads, etc. Imagine being blind or having limited mobility and having to navigate around these things. The condition of sidewalks, when clear, can make it challenging enough as-is in many areas.
It’s better than not having any scooters at all!
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lol. I think there is definitely a spirited discussion that can be had on docked vs. dockless mobility solutions. However the more inconvenient you make it the more likely I’d use another method to get from point A to point B. As an example, I like using the scooters to get from Fayetteville Street to Glenwood South. If I didn’t have that option or wasn’t convenient I may walk but would more likely take an Uber. In that scenario you would think Gotcha would have docks in those two locations. I’d have to see their dock hub locations to see if it would cover other trips I usually take with the scooters.
San Diego is a test bed for scooter companies and having been there 4 times since the scooter revolution I’ve never seen Gotcha. Nashville had at least 4 different companies when I was there last week and, no Gotcha.
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Btw someone yesterday on Twitter was saying that scooter companies some times just abandoned scooters when leaving a market. He said the costs of cleaning up and moving the scooters to a new market wasn’t worth it so they just abandoned them.
I didn’t drill into it too much bc I was supposed to be working but i don’t know how accurate that was or maybe it’s only in cases of test deployments.
He was trying to come up with things to do with the abandoned scooters.
I wonder if this will happen here. I could see one of the companies leaving their herd behind simply out of spite but we’ll see.
Maybe make some sort of public art out of them with a storyline about American excess without concern for our environment?
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There are kits you can buy on eBay that will let you turn a Bird in to your own scooter.
Just saying. If they leave them here, I think that makes them fair game.
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