Los Angeles Welcomes Its Scooter Overlords

This is a fancy concept scooter from MINI, shot against the LA skyline from Dodger Stadium. The yellow thing on the left is a car, soon to be obsolete.MINI USA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The city of Los Angeles has decided to approve the use of scooters within city limits, accompanied by a rather astonishing set of regulations. But at least the poor will benefit, I guess:

The companies will be limited to 3,000 scooters or bikes anywhere in the city, but can deploy up to 2,500 more in low-income areas, and an additional 5,000 vehicles in low-income neighborhoods of the San Fernando Valley.

It doesn’t appear that the scooters have to cost any less in low-income areas, they just have to exist. Is this the kind of help that our low-income workers really need? More scooters? I dunno, but several council members who represent poor districts seemed pretty taken with the idea. We’ll see.

BTW, the speed limit is 15 mph and there’s no riding on sidewalks. “We cannot regulate stupidity,” said councilmember Joe Buscaino.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate