Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city will not allow scooter sharing company Revel to reopen its New York City operations unless they are convinced it can be done safely. Revel shut down its fleet of electric mopeds in the city on July 28 after the second death of a rider in just two weeks.
“Our people have been talking to Revel, and they’ve been making changes, but not enough changes, is the bottom line,” the mayor said according to the New York Times. “This has just gotten to be too much. It just doesn’t work the way it’s structured.”
Fair enough. But, if safe streets are still front and center of the Vision Zero mayor’s mind, why not forward stricter policy and regulatory measures that makes similar demands of automobiles and their manufacturers?
Last June, when the city began to wake up slowly after months of trauma and quarantine at COVID-19, nine pedestrians were killed through cars on the city streets. Not only that, four cyclists, five passengers and 11 other motorists also died in motor vehicle collisions, according to New York police. Nearly 3,500 were injured, many of them seriously, in motor vehicle collisions throughout the city.
Despite the automobile’s automotive division, the mayor has not yet put forward robust policy proposals that prioritize safer streets, such as bicycles, pick transport, and public transport infrastructure.
All this does not mean that Revel and its scooters do not have serious protection problems. In addition to the other two people who were killed, it is not known how many other people were injured in a twist on the fate of the Moped Revel since the corporate began expanding its footprint in the counties beyond Brooklyn last year. Although the company requires little education for its drivers, scooters can seamlessly increase to speeds above 25 mph of the city on local streets and, for many cyclists, this could be the first time on a moped. Also, it’s not unusual to see Revel riders running down motorcycle trails, which is not acceptable.
The responsibility and security measures of the company would be, at best, mediocre. Revel has also been named in at least a dozen lawsuits due to faulty brakes and bald tires. However, it would be a shame to see the company and its fleet of blank electric scooters disappear.
Revel said on June 28 at the close that the company “reviewed and strengthened our protection and service measures for passengers and communicated with city officials, and we look forward to serving you again in the near future.”
Here in Brooklyn, Revel blue scooters have an unusual site and their popularity has obviously exploded due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vespa mopeds carry a funky European flavor to SUV herds, trucks and cars crawling along crowded avenues. But like any means of transportation in New York, there’s a risk detail.
It’s probably because we were raised to have the streets and roads, our largest public area, created just for the car, that we necessarily standardized car violence on city roads. The burdens of fatal or mutilated car injuries that occur each year in New York City almost never make headlines like Revel’s two tragic deaths and, as a result, usually receive a pass in the arena of public protest.
While the mayor is right to call Revel for his abstract education as a driving force and other likely lax controls, the total moralizing hand twisting the scooter company’s protection record proves to be a little hypocritical given the lack of vision and the falsified policy he has articulated. for the streets of the city, just as we face what some call the next crisis of automotive congestion or motorsport.
As the city continues to reopen and many New Yorkers return to work, those who are likely to take the subway or bus will likely depend on a vehicle to get from point A to point B. by bike on the streets of Manhattan or Brooklyn on a daily basis, has already witnessed an already suffocating vehicle traffic point. In addition, frustrated motorists are obviously competitive and drive faster where they can.
In a statement on July 1 after the car car injury car car killing in June, Transportation Alternatives wrote that Blasio’s indifference to return traffic was disastrous for street protection. “They asked the mayor to prioritize the protection of those who use our streets, to invest in cycling and public transport infrastructure for the recovery of our city, and to avoid a large influx of cars.”
While Revel’s electric scooters are not bicycles, they are also not fast carbon movement devices, made up of thousands of pounds of steel, capable of crushing the bones of pedestrians and cyclists in seconds. Perhaps the city can expand a quasi-private-public partnership with Revel, or a company like this, and achieve greater oversight of the security protocols of the company and its passengers. Now is the best time for the city and the mayor to think outdoors and look for tactics to provide select modes of transportation for New Yorkers.
Cody Lyon is a journalist in New York.
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