Scooter Column
Motorized scooters are truly a modern convenience, bringing quick transit to common pedestrians in a way that would not have been possible even 10 years ago.
And at SJSU, they are banned.
Which is a real shame because the campus is around 90 acres at the heart of downtown San Jose is not a small place to traverse.
Downtown traffic is bad enough, but college campus parking situations are famously untenable, especially during the start of a semester.
Users of public transportation are not much better off.
Even though they don't have to deal with traffic, there aren't many public transit stations around the school and a few of them require students to walk a ways, not even mentioning that students end up in situations where the closest drop-off point to the campus is still far away from their classes.
Motorized scooters solve many of these problems.
Can't find a parking spot?
Park further away and grab a nearby Lime or Bird and zip off to your class.
Similarly, no matter how far your public transit station is from your class, you can just grab a scooter and make it with time to spare.
Now of course such a new solution will bring forth its own problems, but banning scooters is tantamount turning their backs on the future just because it happens to be inconvenient.
Plus, the not all of the problems that motorized scooters bring are even new and in fact are shared by self-propelled wheeled vehicles like skateboards, (non-electric) scooters and bicycles.
The problem with motorized scooters is a lack of oversight and rules for reasonable usage.
It is a problem easily solved, in a way that allows us to use these time-saving devices.
Turning our backs on them will be far more costly in the long run.
And at SJSU, they are banned.
Which is a real shame because the campus is around 90 acres at the heart of downtown San Jose is not a small place to traverse.
Downtown traffic is bad enough, but college campus parking situations are famously untenable, especially during the start of a semester.
Users of public transportation are not much better off.
Even though they don't have to deal with traffic, there aren't many public transit stations around the school and a few of them require students to walk a ways, not even mentioning that students end up in situations where the closest drop-off point to the campus is still far away from their classes.
Motorized scooters solve many of these problems.
Can't find a parking spot?
Park further away and grab a nearby Lime or Bird and zip off to your class.
Similarly, no matter how far your public transit station is from your class, you can just grab a scooter and make it with time to spare.
Now of course such a new solution will bring forth its own problems, but banning scooters is tantamount turning their backs on the future just because it happens to be inconvenient.
Plus, the not all of the problems that motorized scooters bring are even new and in fact are shared by self-propelled wheeled vehicles like skateboards, (non-electric) scooters and bicycles.
The problem with motorized scooters is a lack of oversight and rules for reasonable usage.
It is a problem easily solved, in a way that allows us to use these time-saving devices.
Turning our backs on them will be far more costly in the long run.
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