A scooter scourge

Maybe it’s time to disrupt the distrupters. San Francisco’s streets and now its sidewalks are becoming a petri dish for transit innovation. A traffic-clogged city deserves options and experiments.

But the experience should lead to coherent results, not chaos. With change comes the need to protect residents and sort out new activities. When bike riding grew in popularity, the city responded with protected bike lanes and warnings to cyclists to heed traffic laws.

The latest test involves motorized scooters, which appeared from nowhere in the past several weeks. Three companies are posting hundreds of them across busy areas where users can tap apps for a quick ride at a cheap price. The adult tab for a Muni ride is $2.25 while a spin on a scooter goes for a $1 start charge plus 15 cents per minute.

It sounds like a fun, fresh-air idea, not to mention competition for other transit options. The riding rules are loose and it’s easy to shoot through stalled traffic, never mind the potholes. Scooters are barred from sidewalks but riders often whiz along walkways anyway. There’s a helmet law but no enforcement. The minivehicles can be left anywhere, which is drawing complaints about obstruction, especially where sidewalks are narrow and pedestrians bountiful.

The three sponsoring companies are operating in a regulatory vacuum without any city oversight. That’s about to change, as the Municipal Transportation Agency, Supervisor Aaron Peskin and City Attorney Dennis Herrera weigh next steps to rein in a popular but runaway addition.

Scooters offer another way to get around a crowded city. But they need to heed basic safety rules and consider the public. Right now, that’s not happening.