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https://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2021/ ... ic-mopeds/
says

There’s nothing shared or green about those electric mopeds
There is a new scourge in the Netherlands which is clogging up already overcrowded pavements – the supposedly environment-friendly, ‘shared’ electric moped, says Natasha Cloutier in this personal column. They buzz up behind you at the traffic lights, they park on the pavement where ever they like and they are making money out of being able to do so. Felyx, Check and GO Sharing – the names might be friendly, but what looks like a new form of transport is negatively impacting public space. Each moped company has an app that lets you hire one and zoom off. When finished zooming, you’re supposed to leave your moped parked properly on the pavement or at designated parking spaces. Problem is, many people are dumping them pretty much anywhere, blocking access to the pavement. People with mobility issues cannot go around these obstacles, forcing them and pedestrians onto cycle paths and streets. People have the legal right to walk on pavements safely and unhindered, without it being an obstacle course. Shared mopeds are cannibalising public space they don’t own

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LEVs The electric mopeds are only the start. Soon they will be joined by those infernal electric scooters, the children’s toys with motors which the government in its wisdom has now decided can be allowed on the cycle paths next year. They will be joined by all sorts of other weird modes of transport known as LEVs – or light electric vehicles. More clogging up the bike lanes, more clutter on the pavements. According to Amsterdam city council, ‘shared mobility’ is a good alternative for the car. But we already have a good alternative, in the humble bike – and cycling is a much healthier option to boot.

Read more at DutchNews.nl:

Another downside of "cheap" and "clean" (but lazy) private transport.
Last night there was a bit on the World Service talking to an academic/professor who started researching longevity. He said he quickly realised that sedentary jobs were lethal, also that mental stimulation or challenges were also protective... so he sold his car straightaway and now sticks to "active transport." I may have paraphrased it, but that was the gist of his comment.
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Does she write for the daily fail? ..they 'd love her.
Same old hyperbole, nothing new nothing overly factual, merely a "viewpoint" (anti)

Can anyone tell me when automation started (it used to be on a £5 note) the typewriter has been around since early uptake of aviation, the office job longer still, sedentary & modern need proper context of else I have to point out that modern may extend to 100+ years, this perception needs rationale.
(Saying that I used to be laughed at for working at my desk, & on the phone standing up all day, sitting being knackering as the body crashes, & I was too busy)a

Lastly, does the professor have a well paid job, close to point of work job, car enough up the greasy pole to dictate some hours (not shifts) & have young kids / pets? ..because all that makes a big difference as to how something is reported & perceived.
..any idea of the title (to catch the repeat) ?

The title is "There’s nothing shared or green about those electric mopeds" and it is a news/blog article in an english-language Dutch news digest...

Actually, I would expect the academic to live within walking (more likely cycling) distance as it is about the Netherlands. They do things very differently there. I doubt that they have as many pets as here, but childcare will almost certainly be well-organised, and there will be no car-run driving nonsense either. I think more than 50% of their commuting is by bike. So no, I don't think ot is a Daily Fail-type article.

Problem is, many people are dumping them pretty much anywhere, blocking access to the pavement. People with mobility issues cannot go around these obstacles, forcing them and pedestrians onto cycle paths and streets. People have the legal right to walk on pavements safely and unhindered, without it being an obstacle course. Shared mopeds are cannibalising public space they don’t own – for profit.
Photo: DutchNews.nl The companies have sold the promise of mobility and sustainability to the bigger cities and are now causing problems in smaller ones. Since 2017 when Felyx started in Amsterdam, people thought that this ‘asociaal’ behaviour would stop, but it’s only getting worse. Thousands of scooters cannot possibly solve mobility problems by causing mobility problems – that’s madness.

and

In the NRC, journalist Erik Bouwer explains that there is no evaluation criteria for the two-year (plus one year) pilot. It’s always presented as a success because there’s no proof of failure.
‘The concept of a shared moped doesn’t work,’ he writes. ‘It’s a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist. The city is giving away public space to a profit-making company, which has nothing do with sharing. It’s just moped hire.’

I think it is a reasonable complaint that a walking cycling nation is being inconvenienced by those who want to put less effort into getting around.
Just because something is electric doesn't mean it's a good thing.
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I get the impression that the problem is really nothing to do with being electric, but more the concept of just borrowing a scooter from a faceless organisation and dumping aparently haphazardly when finished using it. Perhaps if they were owned people would look after them better and not leave them lying around to create problems for others.

How would a deposit on the rental work, which you get back when leaving the scooter in a proper place (OK - not sure on how this would be recognised) and if you just dump it on the street somewhere then no refund of your deposit?

Countrypaul wrote: ↑Fri Aug 27, 2021 12:41 pm I get the impression that the problem is really nothing to do with being electric, but more the concept of just borrowing a scooter from a faceless organisation and dumping aparently haphazardly when finished using it. Perhaps if they were owned people would look after them better and not leave them lying around to create problems for others.

How would a deposit on the rental work, which you get back when leaving the scooter in a proper place (OK - not sure on how this would be recognised) and if you just dump it on the street somewhere then no refund of your deposit?

Like Boris Bikes? With dedicated docks, your credit card gets stung if you fail to correctly dock it. That would be better, but it doesn’t address the problem of motorised transport mixing with pedestrians.

NOPE, you are very wrong AE, you allow your very clear disdain of many forms of travel (to YOUR OWN perceived standards) to show rather than being realistic as to the likes of modernity, different countries function et al, which can be skewed perspective, this is clear across numerous posts

Please, Try & play devils advocate because to ride green unicorns whilst desirable is not the reality.
Passion is great, but keep perspective.

Someone (yes, likely a big tech company) tries to E-capitalise on a nation that already does pretty well for green transport, it's what is to be expected because they are already highly mobile & generationally used to biking way of life & they have the infrastructure down (mostly)

Smaller, lighter mobility is clearly needed, if you cannot see the similarity between that piece & every hack job news rag that lifts copies & pastes under their own name then you need to "check your head" (as the beastie boys said)

Passion for a subject is fine but stay grounded, (& hopeful for society to come round to faster willing green-er change)

Many of us live in the countryside, many of us could do without driving one person in a big heavy fricking car & utilise something that is 10% of the weight, & many of us as we get older should have the choice to move ourselves without waiting 4 hours to get 5 miles on crap overpriced local transport that goes to hell in a handcart outside of heavily funded city limits, so getting people to think back to mopeds is a good thing (especially when not belching out the noise & crud pollutants of a 2 stroke engine) EVEN in Holland.

I get on a bus here in the sticks & breathe diesel fumes for the duration, my chest is worse off for it, (do you have any info on pollution INSIDE a bus that makes frequent low gear changes & stops & how that non sealed engine leaks into the cabin space? ..i'd be interested if you did, likely I could write an equally damning piece about "young lungs" or similar.

Besides, November before lockdown I was doing physio on my bad leg (cycling) came off, hurt myself worse, making regular cycling HARDER on my body ever since, your way is not necessarily others way, IF the "professor" doesn't have to commute along non existent cycle paths, the next city along from the countryside where the money has all been spent on motorway which he's not allowed on, nor has he kids in his way, nor pet that needs letting out periodically allowing him to do a full day + hours of travel by cycle, you are citing "marvellous medicine" idealism for all but it's wholly impractical, or unaffordable, (or both even) for many.

Besides, bikes are all over the place in hollands streets, (JUST LIKE CAMBRIDGE) accepted, the E-transport is a disruptor, makes for a page filler of grievance along the same form be it early Boris bikes, E-scooters, E-Peds, Smart EV city cars, which all operate under the same premise as a private vehicle, get in/on drive, park it somewhere & leave it, which is exactly the formula drivers & riders of transport everywhere that doesn't fit on their back utilise & becomes blocked highways, blocked "parked on" pavements etc ..cars blocking pavements don't raise the eybrows of many police let alone the public. it is #BANTHISKILLERCRAZE two faced BS reportage & outrage all over again (which I will keep using when this sort of stupid keeps being repeated)

You can use an e-moped without expensive change to pre-existing or non existent infrastructure, where you park your mode of transport is on the user, who based on phone use could easily be told "use your feet" for parking like an idiot over a period of time (after all the phone is the ID for lock, unlock, movement, payment et al) but then again sat triangulation isn't perfect either, which is why scooter firms might ask for a picture of where you parked as a back up. ..easier to create faux outrage & whip up a storm without this easily pointed out info by a "community minded" news rag who would gain plaudits for taking it up with the company & publicising there is likely a "3 strikes" option which needs acting upon.

If people really cared about the state of their streets there would be a lot more reports on pot-holes (which would scare councils re 10 day "liability") & maybe I'd not be the only person I know in my area who picks up litter from the streets & roads upon which I walk, ride, drive, pick up a fallen bike in Cambridge that 50 stupid people tut & fail to resolve the problem by shuffling around & causing the path to be even slower, instead pause, pick it up prop it back up etc etc. ..no biggie.

The bleating news piece relies on people ignoring a problem, not an obvious fix, & that skewed view likely encourage the dim witted to kick over a bunch of scooters / ebikes just like parking in an ICE in an ev bay "because I can" .. which is plain stupid.

Come on...
The Netherlands is the world's 5th most densely populated country, it has superb public transport, it builds (and rebuilds) towns and suburbs around cycling and walking to discourage car use, it is even having to build multi-storey cycle parks at stations! (See https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/multi ... erdam.html) and
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019 ... -bike-park

In a nation with more bikes than people, finding a space to park can be a problem. The Dutch city of Utrecht is unveiling an answer at its railway station on Monday morning: the world’s largest multistorey parking area for bicycles.
The concrete-and-glass structure holds three floors of gleaming double-decker racks with space for 12,500 bikes, from cargo bikes that hold a family to public transport bikes for rent.
It is part of a strategy in which hundreds of millions of euros are being devoted to enhancing cycling infrastructure across the Netherlands, a nation so fervent about its two-wheelers that it is applying to add cycling to its inventory of intangible heritage.

I was impressed by the bike racks at bus shelters in the middle of nowhere when we had a cycling holiday there 25 or 30 years ago.

They are also light-years ahead of us on public health. Why allow road (and footpath) space to be taken up by powered transport when Active Transport is all they need? I think the cycle-park follows on from something similar in Amsterdam: if town and road space is at an absolute premium (and energy use needs to be minimised) then why allow powered vehicles back in?
This is talking about there (and is a brilliant example to follow) but not saying it is universally applicable across remote rural commmunities. However, if our bus services were as good as theirs...
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One of the good things about cycling in the Netherlands: no hills!
However, it can be windy apparently (according to an ex who lived there for a while and said it put her off cycling).

We once went to the highest point (in either the Netherlands or N Holland) with friends who lived there (we met on a camp site in Switzerland.)

Cycling in open flat country is gruelling if you have a head-wind, but that is what gears are for! It's only like going up a long hill, after all...
On another holiday we took the easy way out: each time the wind settled in a different direction we took a train across the country to the border and cycled back down-wind for a few days! One memorable bit was on an off-road cycle path with the wind on our quarter: sit up, unzip your jacket and hold the 2 sides out across the wind like a sail.
You have to make a holiday fun with 2 teenage boys!
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