Electric Scooter Companies Risk Backlash from Regulators for Customers' Risky Behavior

Several electric bike and scooter-sharing companies have started up within the past couple of years. One of the biggest companies flooding the streets of major cities like Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and San Fransisco is Bird, now referred to as the Uber of scooters, which seemed to appear out of nowhere less than a year ago. But, while the scooters have grown ever more popular among their growing base of users, Bird has faced backlash from the cities and some of their residents. According to Tracey Lien's L.A. Times article, despite Bird's efforts, the users of the electric scooters consistently ignore local laws and safety guidelines.

But what can Bird really do about it? The cities have tried upping regulations on the scooter companies, they've issued fines and citations, and they've even forced Bird to update their terms and conditions to try to guarantee safer practices. Still, little has changed in terms of user behavior. Bird can add extra rules to their app and make users agree to wear a helmet. Bird can even provide their customers with helmets for free. But there's no way for Bird to actually guarantee that their customers will use the helmets.

After trying to deal with the problem through the company, the cities have had to try other alternatives in promoting safer riding. They have been able to get companies like Bird to improve safety guidelines and commit to providing a percentage of their daily income to the city to go toward improving infrastructure, which could, in turn, promote greater safety and improve user experience. But, they've also tried going after the individual riders, which has worked, to an extent. By issuing citations and fines to scooter-riders not wearing helmets, local police have been able to get some riders to make a more conscious decision and wear a helmet because they don't want to have to pay over $100 for not doing so. Other users choose to avoid the scooters altogether, determining that the risk of a ticket is too high to justify the enjoyment or convenience that the scooters provide.

Still, others continue riding the scooters, and just hope that they never get stopped by the police. They find helmets to be uncomfortable, or inconvenient. Many riders don't wear helmets simply because they don't have their helmet with them. These types of ride-sharing services tend to attract spur-of-the-moment users, not those who knew they would use one from the time they left their house in the morning. The only way for every rider to wear a helmet is if all potential users carried around a helmet with them all day, which just isn't realistic. Some dockable bike-sharing companies have had systems where a user could retrieve a helmet when renting a bike, but such a business design had higher costs, which led many of those companies to go out of business. There have been dozens of injuries reported in recent months, mostly involving scrapes and bruises, but some with broken bones and head trauma. There doesn't seem to be an obvious solution to the problem at the moment, but if Bird and similar companies don't make a change, major cities could start banning the scooters altogether.

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Uber Express Pool Expected to be a Cheaper and More Efficient Ride-Sharing Option

Especially in crowded metropolitan areas like San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, fewer and fewer people are choosing to drive. Between the cost of gas/maintenance and often the complete inability to find parking anywhere, many would-be drivers opt to use ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft instead. For those who drive long distances on a daily basis, it still makes more sense to own a car, but for those who don't drive often, ride-sharing is the cheaper alternative. The cheapest variation of ride-sharing is UberPool, which lets multiple riders share an Uber and split the cost. According to an L.A. Times article written by Tracey Lien, an even cheaper and more efficient alternative, called Uber Express Pool, is on its way to LA.

Uber Pool, while great in that it can save a rider a few dollars on a trip and can give the driver the ability to pick up more fares in a shorter time, also has its downsides. One of the biggest complaints about the Uber Pool service is that it isn't a very fast way of getting anywhere. Inherently, when you opt to allow the driver to pick up other riders on the way to your destination, there will be a little bit of time added to your commute. However, because of the way Uber Pool is set up, it ends up being even longer, as the driver is directed to strange circuitous routes that the app calculates to "maximize efficiency," but which actually does the exact opposite. Additionally, for people taking a longer distance Uber Pool, the driver may pick up multiple passengers along the way, and then will have to go out of the way to drop them off before ever reaching the original rider's destination.

Uber Express Pool is expected to retain Uber Pool's upsides (especially its lowered prices) with fewer of its drawbacks. Some have compared Express Pool to a bus service in that it has designated pick-up and drop-off locations along routes created at a rider's request. Riders will have to walk a bit to get to where they're going, but this system avoids the wasted time of giving each rider door-to-door service, which makes each ride more efficient. It also allows riders to have a better approximation as to the time frame of their arrival. If the car isn't going off in random directions to pick up extra fares, then it's pretty easy to figure out how long the ride will take, even with multiple stops in the middle.

A somewhat similar system is already in place on several college campuses and airports, but that's more for ease of use and to ease traffic congestion. At those locations, there are designated pick-up and drop-off locations. By having those locations, the schools and airports don't have drivers constantly blocking up traffic, and drivers and riders are more easily able to find each other. When riders used to be able to request a pick-up anywhere on campus, it was often difficult for drivers to find them, as the routes through many college campuses tend to be difficult to navigate for people not accustomed to them. In all, it seems that the updated Express Pool will be beneficial to both riders and drivers, and is, therefore, a positive addition to Uber's array of services.

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California Tourism Indutry Grows for Seventh Consecutive Year

Tourism can be a huge economic boost for any given state or country. Tourists stay at hotels and motels, they eat at restaurants, and they shop at stores, all of which can help to stimulate the local economy. Big cities like Paris, New York City, and London are popular tourist destinations, but cities throughout California, especially Los Angeles and San Francisco, have been booming over the past several years. In fact, according to Makeda Easter's L.A. Times article, research shows that California's tourism industry has grown every year for the past seven consecutive years.

Data showed that spending on travel in California was up 3.8% last year to $126.3 billion. Over a million jobs in the state are involved in the tourism industry, up 2.5% from the year before. Even tax revenue was up from tourism-related expenditures. Tax revenue was over $10 billion last year and tourism incorporated nearly 3% of the state's GDP (gross domestic product). Not only is California generally a popular tourist destination, economists believe the continuing improvement of its tourism industry could be due to economic growth around the country and the world.

As the global economy improves, people have more money to spend and feel more stable and willing to spend the money. Because of that, they tend to take more vacations and spend more money on travel. Research shows that California is the number 1 tourist destination in the country. Its tourism industry is 2.5 times bigger than that of Florida, which has just as many tourist attractions and theme parks as California. Additionally, of the hundreds of millions of tourists each year throughout California, many of them come from different parts of California itself, rather than from out of the state or from other countries.

California tourism is expected to keep going strong. Some theme parks, such as Disneyland, are undergoing changes and renovations that they hope will bring in more visitors, but only time will tell if the improvements will succeed. People like to visit California for its weather, beaches, and popular social scene, but as the value of the dollar continues to increase, people may look to travel outside of the country for vacation. California can be a very expensive place to live, so people's preferences can change pretty quickly. Maybe next year will be the eighth consecutive year of growth. We'll just have to wait and see.

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San Francisco's Anti-Airbnb Proposition Narrowly Fails

Short-term home or apartment rentals, usually through online platforms like Airbnb and VRBO, have been steeped with controversy in recent months. Some cities have even tried to ban such rentals while others have embraced them wholeheartedly. Most recently, San Francisco put forth a proposition to limit the ability of landlords to use such websites for renting their property. Tracey Lien, in her L.A. Times article, discusses how Airbnb affects both landlords and tenants, and how this new Proposition F may affect the city.

The controversy behind services like Airbnb is mainly one of a fight between a capitalist economic theory and one in which people deserve fair treatment. On the one side, tenants in San Francisco fear that the increasing prevalence of Airbnb will eventually lead the owners of their rented homes and apartments to evict them in favor of the larger sums paid by short-term renters. It is these tenants who would vote for the proposition since it limits landlords' use of Airbnb and their ability to turn normal rentals into short-term ones quickly. The proposition aims to prevent or at least slow down the conversion of apartment buildings into pseudo-hotels.

Some see it differently. While services like Airbnb could convince landlords to evict tenants in favor of the faster income, the free market could take care of any issues that arise from it. Eventually, if enough landlords raised prices enough to match the rising demand by tourists, ten the average worker would not be able to afford to live in the city. If workers are forced to move out, then business and regular city work will grind to a halt, When the economy halts in such a way, tourists will not want to visit, which will force landlords to lower their prices back to normal rates in order to get tenants. While this situation could probably work itself out, Proposition F aims to avoid it altogether.

Even for some landlords, Airbnb has uncomfortable implications. One Balboa Park resident, who had only ever rented his units out on a long-term basis voted against Proposition F. He worried that his tenants might use Airbnb to rent out his unit for short-term stays, a concept that he wasn't completely comfortable with. However,different from many tenants, he said that he would have voted yes on the proposition if he was in their shoes for that same reason: the ability to rent out the apartment in which one is living while out of town for short periods of time.

Unfortunately for those passionate about the topic, voter turnout for the proposition was extremely low. In-person votes were in the low hundreds, and mail-in votes reached about 9,000. In the end, Airbnb beat the bill, but even while celebrating, the San Francisco-based company expects further assaults in the near future. They believe that the proposition failed mainly due to its highly specific and extreme stance regarding the short-term rentals. Even so, the vote was close, with about 45% of voters supporting the proposition. Airbnb fears, rightfully, that behind the scenes, lawmakers in places like Los Angeles and San Diego may be getting ready to start the fight all over again.

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