Of course, I could have done that distance in 5 minutes or less on my Dahon foldie. But I wanted to see if the lighter and less cumbersome Xootr could plug that gap for me.

I got into a few scrapes on the first few days of use. Bumpy tiled pavements are bad for it, roads too. Smooth pavements are best, and I learned to watch for potholes and raised surfaces too high for its wheels.

Dooring (not from cars, but from shopfronts) was also something to watch for.

That said, I reckon the scooter to be a fun and possible alternative for short trips. I am certainly going to experiment with it more.

Conversely, I can be stuck in traffic on a highway (although never as bad as these poor people), I can be stuck on a crowded train or crawling bus. I can feel frustrated about having skates on my feet – or having to schlep them around town. I can even feel stuck on foot, especially in a place with no sidewalks. Interestingly, I don’t usually feel trapped on a bike the way Alex describes, but I can understand how he does.

Mainly, I think it’s futile to have arguments that go, “Your favorite mode of transportation is stifling, but mine is liberating!”

Alex, I rode my touring bike 50 miles r-t out to Paramus NJ on Saturday, almost entirely on roads, and I experienced neither the trapped feeling nor the “about to be killed” feeling. The first I don’t get at all; riding a bike feels liberating, not entrapping. The second doesn’t usually happen if you practice vehicular cycling that you caricatured last autumn in the “cyclists don’t need to follow traffic laws” article.

Walking along Sixth Avenue on that end of the Slope recently, I noticed a lot of very irregular sidewalk (it’s a pet peeve of mine since a few years ago, the City summonsed me for a small piece of broken sidewalk, and we ended up spending $2000 to replace the sidewalk in front of our home. Everywhere I go, I see sidewalks 10X more dangerous than ours was).

My point, now that I’d done ranting, is that scooting in that vicinity is probably much safer on the street, cars notwithstanding.

Glad you survived. You and David Byrne with close brushes in the past couple of weeks…
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0823,more-songs-played-by-buildings,458791,22.html

This alternative-mode story brings to mind your pre-CP doom Segway piece:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/06/27/segway-users-the-other-minority/

Modes become safe and accepted as they build critical mass.

Imagine, if overnight, there was a City scooter/Segway share. All the people who are too scared to get run over and/or sweaty might just sign up to this share, and pay a nominal fee to use it, perhaps even within a pre-tax TransitCheck system.

It could be a private venture of a firm like Zipcar…or a joint venture between ZipCar and DOT or MTA. (Or maybe the obvious existing player: http://www.nysegwaytours.com/ )

A la Ciclovia, we could have scooter/bike/segway/skateboard/pedestrian streets, but not just on the weekends…24/7/365.

Nothing on DOTs site about Segways.
But apparently, though Iris W was not a fan:
http://inmyowndamnwords.blogspot.com/2005/09/question-for-commissioner-weinshall.html

Before I get on with my day, some food for thought:
1) The Taxi & Limousine Commission only regulates ~50,000 vehicles, of which ~13,000 are medallion taxicabs, citywide (or a total of ~200,000 passenger seats citywide…not sure what peak occupancy would look like, but certainly less than 200K.)
http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/about/about.shtml

2) Segways are silent, and quite carbon reductive
http://www.segway.com/individual/keep-it-green.php

3) They cost ~$6000 retail. I imagine if purchased on a large scale, the City and/or other investors could get a sweet deal and perhaps even qualify for renewable energy credits.

4) Before France had Velib, they had a Segway share program to bring people to/and from the train stations. Bravo, intermodal!
scroll down to middle of this link:
http://www.segway.com/about-segway/media-center/newsletters/general_009.html

5) Do we really want to be upstaged?
by Chicago http://www.segway.com/about-segway/media-center/press_releases/pr_053006.php
and by Rudy G
http://www.segway.com/about-segway/media-center/press_releases/pr_010208.php

6) Well, actually, the NYPD is already on board, ten units strong, great for crowd control, fast response, bike lane and blocked box patrol, and no horse sh*t to clean up: http://www.segway.com/about-segway/media-center/press_releases/pr_051607.php
(The Segway i2 Police units purchased by the New York Police Department are the newest generation models. The i2 model has a range of up to 24 miles, a top speed of 12.5 m.p.h. and a payload of 260 lbs.)

7) At a range of 24 miles, someone like me could visit my parents on Long Island, without ever needing a recharge, and without ever needing to set foot indoors. Alex, on a regional level, would the Regional Planning Association consider getting behind a Region-wide Segway share with recharge stations every 20 miles or so?

What other form of transport allows for fencing bouts in the park?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrgWfyi55s8

9) I am not much for math, and I imagine Charlie Komanoff has plenty on his plate, but if a Segway-share could be inserted into BTA 2.0, as a means perhaps to offset politically-explosive $16 car fee, could that be what pushes the Kheel Plan past the tipping point?
http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/06/02/kheel-plan-2-to-revive-free-transit-proposal-for-09-races/

10) I’ve only Segwayed 2X. The first time I rode a Segway, it was lent to me by a woman with Multiple Sclerosis, on a bumpy farm in Old Lyme, CT. She said she couldn’t walk more than a few feet, and hated putting a wheelchair in a van. But she could stand and hold on and ride just fine.
Segways seem to be appreciated by ADA, at least to some extent.
http://www.fta.dot.gov/civilrights/ada/civil_rights_3893.html
And if some wheelchair bound folks could transfer to Segways, cost of legally-mandated paratransit in MTA budget could decline significantly
http://www.mta.info/mta/ada/paratransit.htm
PLUS, it would be much less scary for wheelchair operators to move through Manhattan, reducing demand wheelchair demand on Subway and Buses (which, with all due respect to disabled riders, can really slow down a cross-town bus ride.)

11) Latest hot-pie news out of Concord,NH:
Let’s Segway to a new way to get a pizza
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080606/NEWS01/806060352
If I close my eyes real tight, I can see CP-neutral God’s Love We Deliver getting rid of their delivery trucks and never having to agonize over CP user fees and traffic jams again. And we could buy much more local food at the Union Square Greenmarket if it weren’t such a struggle getting it all home on the subway or on a topsy-turvy bicycle.

12) There has been anti-Segway testimony in the past (i.e. http://www.transalt.org/newsroom/testimony/1910 2002
and http://www.transalt.org/newsroom/testimony/1898 2003) but times have changed. If it made sense in the current, very ped/bike friendly context I would hope, that “the advocates” would get behind the Segway, as long as pedestrians were not at risk.

13) Dean Kamen, the Segway inventor, is a card-carrying genius who genuinely cares for the greater good…and I’m sure he could help us figure out how to avoid getting wet on the Segways when it rains:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/view/id/10
http://www.dekaresearch.com/aboutDean.html

Again, critical mass is key for safety and awareness, so rapid scale up may be key. There are pilots and then there are pilots!

I’ve put at least 500 miles on my Brompton and haven’t once even come close to crashing.

Oh, and how not to crash: Just ignore the scooter entirely, and focus on landing on your feet. Its when you try and recover on the scooter that you’ll have issues.

It’s certainly a legitimate issue as to whether scooters should be allowed on sidewalks. It’s certainy much safer for the scooter rider. It seems to work pretty well here in Brooklyn. I’ve seen few problems, if any. But Manhattan with its crowds would be a different story.

Well, you must have an ill-fitting bike, and on top of that must not know how to ride very well.

Scooters suck – small diameter wheels and an inherently unstable wheelbase mean you get taken out by the tiniest crack and seam — sidewalk or street, it doesn’t matter.

Teach your kid to ride a bike and get there faster.