Will Chicagoans all ditch their bikes, cars, and public transportation to zip around everywhere on lime-green electric scooters over the next few years?
One of the first decisions I had to make: Where’s the most appropriate place to actually ride the thing? The street felt like a weird place for a compact scooter that resembles an adult version of a child’s toy, but so did the sidewalk, where I could have really annoyed (or even knocked into) pedestrians. I settled on staying within marked bike lanes, but even that felt awkward—like I was invading someone else’s turf—so I tried to travel quiet residential streets instead.
My favorite part of the e-scooter is that it’s dockless—the same aspect that makes it so controversial in other cities because of all the scooters that wind up cluttering the sidewalks. After making it to Wicker Park Fest, I was able to abandon my ride on the sidewalk ten yards away from the festival’s entrance. If the city of Chicago mandates that Lime outfit the scooters with “lock-to” mechanisms of the sort required for its dockless bikes, the scooters will be a much less attractive option.
