KCRag Forum

earthling wrote:^Have noticed Bird blocks out no ride zones on the map for some cities (in red on map). Main St shouldn't be allowed riding methinks at all, especially through CBD/Xroads. In general not in support of riding on sidewalk (given the 15mph speed) but not enforce if no pedestrian on sidewalk at time. Nearly every downtown street is scooter ridable on street except Main and Broadway, Grand has bike path - can stay off sidewalks. Except for crossing, Main and Broadway should probably be 'red' banned, can easily hop a block over.

Agreed on sidewalks, and riders should be ticketed for that (as should cyclists, starting with the KCPD bike patrol and Main Street CID red shirts!).

Main and Broadway allow cyclists, so scooters should be allowed there, too. I rode a big stretch of Troost today, which was probably not a good idea because the road diet had taken it down to one lane in each direction -- drivers don't like being stuck behind someone capped at 17mph (and I only mustered 9mph up that steep grade near the health department).

Allow cyclists on the sidewalks on Main and Broadway?

KCPowercat wrote:Allow cyclists on the sidewalks on Main and Broadway?

Maybe I misunderstood the comment. No one's going to ban scooters specific city streets. It's already illegal to ride on the sidewalks.

austin has done that for bikes and hence scooters....they allow bikes/scooters on a majority of their sidewalks from what I read.


Is it a non-starter to think KCMO could allow these on the sidewalk? That's about the only place I feel safe riding them.

Bike Share operator Ofo is pulling out of the states after less than a year.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-bike ... 1531959910

With our narrow ass sidewalks and insistence on further eroding their useful walking space by planting trees, I don't see how having people blazing around them at running speed on powered wheeled vehicles could be anything other than a nuisance. I wouldn't feel safe riding one on the street with traffic either, but given the apparent choice here I'd rather preserve the meager pedestrian-reserved walking areas we have for pedestrians and keep the scooters on the streets.

mean wrote:With our narrow ass sidewalks and insistence on further eroding their useful walking space by planting trees, I don't see how having people blazing around them at running speed on powered wheeled vehicles could be anything other than a nuisance. I wouldn't feel safe riding one on the street with traffic either, but given the apparent choice here I'd rather preserve the meager pedestrian-reserved walking areas we have for pedestrians and keep the scooters on the streets.

I almost had a collision with a pair of scooters this morning as I turned a corner from 18th onto Baltimore. Two were riding beside each other on the sidewalk and yelled at me to "get the f*** out of the way."

moderne wrote:I almost had a collision with a pair of scooters this morning as I turned a corner from 18th onto Baltimore. Two were riding beside each other on the sidewalk and yelled at me to "get the f*** out of the way."

That would piss me right off, where they young punks or something?
You should have said "Are you guys too big of pussies to ride those in the street"

As best I can tell, Bird must have something buried in their Terms & Conditions that if you don't have a helmet, wearing a baseball cap backwards while rocking your fraternity's service day T-shirt is also considered an acceptable safety precaution.

mean wrote:With our narrow ass sidewalks and insistence on further eroding their useful walking space by planting trees, I don't see how having people blazing around them at running speed on powered wheeled vehicles could be anything other than a nuisance. I wouldn't feel safe riding one on the street with traffic either, but given the apparent choice here I'd rather preserve the meager pedestrian-reserved walking areas we have for pedestrians and keep the scooters on the streets.

It's a good point.....it's just how empty our sidewalks are 99% of the time

KCPD said they would fine riding on sidewalk. I don't know how much but I'll start telling sidewalk riders "$75 fine riding on sidewalks, I've been caught".

edit: I would not ride sidewalk downtown but may elsewhere if not seeing anyone on sidewalk within next 2 blocks. Seems like a reasonable approach.

brewcrew1000 wrote:Bike Share operator Ofo is pulling out of the states after less than a year.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-bike ... 1531959910

Will be interesting to see how chips fall with more convenient electric scooters. Would like to see KC push for dockless scooters but not dockless bikes given larger footprint of bikes when parked, bikes more can be more obstructive nuisance than scooters. Ideally Bcycle expands with electric assist bikes with either docks or some form of dedicated bike parking. Could see Bcycle entering scooter with annual pass that allows bike/scooter combo. Would like to see Lime enter KC - sounds like they might be transitioning to scooter only? Mixed feelings about possible dockless bikes now that we have scooters along with Bcycle station-based for other use cases.

KCPowercat wrote:It's a good point.....it's just how empty our sidewalks are 99% of the time

Obviously 99% of the time is an exaggeration, but my concern is that most of the people who are going to use these things are, most of the time, going to want to use them during times and places the sidewalks aren't empty, considering that the reason they aren't empty is that there are a lot of people trying to get places during those times, and people trying to get to places are exactly the target market for scooter use. Ya feel me?

Totally get that but overall it's not much of an exaggeration. Thinking of my daily commute or a walk to east Crossroads breweries....going to dinner somewhere....passing someone is an unexpected joy even today.

Rick usher kind of echoed that though today on Twitter....saying our sidewalks are so undercapacity still that it's very tempting for scooter/bike/etc riders to bail to the sidewalk vs. deal with hostile traffic without accommodations for them.

Earrhling...can you link to that kcpd statement. I would die laughing that this is the stand PD would take on sidewalk enforcement after years of pedestrians being treated like 2jd class sitizens by cars, bikes, construction, delivery vechicles, etc.

We are trying to treat this "problem" all wrong if this is their approach.

KCPowercat wrote: Earrhling...can you link to that kcpd statement. I would die laughing that this is the stand PD would take on sidewalk enforcement after years of pedestrians being treated like 2jd class sitizens by cars, bikes, construction, delivery vechicles, etc.

It was a KCPD statement in one of the local articles. Will see if I can find it. In general, motorized vehicles apparently not allowed. They should get the word out on what the fine is even if not enforced.

No biggie....I'll see if I can find it.

Amazing segways have been buzzing around by mall cops for a decade downtown and not one peep

I thought the same thing about Segways, although they have never really become the type of plague these scooters have the potential to be (and have been, it seems, elsewhere).

That our sidewalks are underutilized is true, although I'm not sure that allowing people to terrorize pedestrians on scooters is exactly in alignment with encouraging utilization.

I'm sure my tune will change the first time an idiot bonks into me with one....maybe just retired from the scooter game if I'm not ballsy enough to ride it in the same lane as a 2 ton death machine going 30 mph.

My Segway comment was more from the PD perspective if they are truly coming out this strong on scooters on sidewalks. Our sidewalks have offenses that could be fined constantly but the scooters come along and they suddenly take notice? Eyeroll

I don't entirely understand why these scooters are so psychologically different than bicycles. Is it just that bikes are larger and more visible? I can't imagine the threat of injury is that much greater than if you got hit on a bike.

In a perfect world we'd have protected bike lanes everywhere or we'd widen our sidewalks to accommodate "accelerated pedestrians" but there's no way we have either the money or political will to do anything that might slightly either inconvenience or even just not explicitly benefit motorists. The bike lanes we can manage to get are kind of a joke, but I guess better than nothing.