Are eScooters Sustainable? Pitch #8 – Glenn Zucman, LA Observer

Last year and this year eScooters have invaded Santa Monica in a massive way. They’re fun, friendly, and easy ways to get around Santa Monica. But as renters, users often take little interest in the health and maintenance of eScooters. They get bashed and kicked on a regular basis. Walking down Santa Monica Blvd today I saw the pieces of an eScooter strewn along the sidewalk. What resources go into a scooter? How long does one last? They may be profitable for Lime and the other eScooter companies, but is their life too short to be sustainable with respect to the earth’s resources?

Discussion

You: Hi, Pyper! I finished (sans any revisions) a related photo story “The Scooter Keepers” on Friday: The Scooter Keepers

More generally, I realized last week that writing & photographing a piece solo isn’t the best way to build newsroom community. For a big project, going solo might be a mountain of work, for a small project it might be fine, but either way, it puts one in a sort of corner of the newsroom. So I think I’d really like to collaborate with Corsair writers on everything I can going forward. For my Carl’s Jr. “Beyond Meat” pitch, Casey suggested posting in the Facebook group, which I did, and wound up connecting with Hazel to work on the piece.

As for eScooters, now that I’ve done one story, IDK if I have a burning desire to do another, but it feels like a very relevant topic. They seem to be all over Santa Monica! 😛

Clearly eScooters seem to be *profitable*, but it’s far from clear to me that they are environmentally *sustainable.* Especially as a rental business. If someone buys an eScooter, they’re likely to use it for many years to come, but rentals receive much harsher treatment. We don’t seem to love what we don’t own. (rot of capitalism/failure of socialism) _{7 days ago}

Pyper Witt Lest wait until your plate is less full to accept this pitch then! Don’t want to overwork you _{7 days ago}

You: Hi, Pyper! Yes, I’m a photographer! 🙂 I was walking down Santa Monica Blvd last week and saw the broken bits of a Lime scooter strewn across the curb (and photographed it, of course!) and asked myself the question.

I know that these rentals do get a bit bashed. Last summer I saw a guy walk down the Venice Boardwalk and kick over all the parked scooters.

I actually don’t know the environmental/sustainability numbers on these: they might wind up being good or bad, but they’re at least not “obviously good”. Yet, they do seem to fit the Millennial lifestyle well. Another interesting idea is that except for the relatively few places with Bike Lanes, there aren’t really places for Scooters or Bicycles. On the road with cars is pretty harsh for a tiny scooter. Yet, zipping down sometimes narrow sidewalks and terrorizing pedestrians isn’t great either. IDK what the short term answer is. The long term answer is that we should have been making more bike lanes since a long time ago. And if we didn’t, we probably should be more aggressive going forward.

I could write it. Although my plate is getting kind of full, so it might have to wait a while. I’d also be fine letting anyone else write it. I could work on photography for it. I already have the broken SM Bl pix from last Tuesday, and on Saturday I photographed another broken scooter on Fairfax in LA.

LMK what you think. Thanks, Pyper! _{13 days ago}

Pyper Witt I would love to see an article about this, although I thought you were a photographer? Can you do both? _{13 days ago}

Discussion

Published by Glenn Zucman