I do a lot of travel and, anecdotally, there seems to be a huge variation in popularity of rental scooters by city (even just considering the cities where one or more companies operate). Wide bike/pedestrian paths are probably one factor and weather is another. But they seem very popular in some places and barely used in others for reasons that often aren't immediately obvious, at least to me.
> they seem very popular in some places and barely used in others for reasons that often aren't immediately obvious
I think a lot of this has to do with regulation. Some cities actively encouraged scooters and bikes, some took a hands-off approach, and others banned or restricted them to the level where it was difficult to operate.
You can really see the effect of this in San Diego, which at first welcomed the bikes and scooters, then reversed course and banned them in a lot of places [1]. Several of the companies left town after that happened, and you see a lot fewer bikes and scooters around now. It's still the same city, same weather, and there are more bike lanes than there were two years ago. The only thing that changed is the regulation.
I don't remember welcoming them, so much as they proliferated over the course of a few months. They were so "popular" that they were being left all over the place to the point where it was widely regarded as hazardous. Companies in this space need to take more responsibility for the impact on the community and environment - regulation didn't kill them in San Diego, the companies themselves did.
> You can really see the effect of this in San Diego, which at first welcomed the bikes and scooters, then reversed course and banned them in a lot of places
I'm in San Diego, and that's exactly what happened. I live downtown, and at first, scooters were my favorite way to get around.
Then the city forced the scooter vendors to configure no-ride zones, 3mph speed limit zones (seriously, you can walk faster), and no-parking zones inside their apps, and geofence them. Overnight, the downtown scooter market just dried up. I stopped using all scooters downtown because of this, not just Lime, and since the regulation kicked in, I can't see any scooter company making it in downtown San Diego. The scooters just disappeared.
