The Rise of the Electric Scooter
I rode a non-electric kick scooter (Xootr) for three years working in downtown SF. It is by far the best form of transitional transport there is and superior to bikes for 99% of actual real world travel. It was easily 4-5 times faster than walking and more importantly suddenly made the entire city open due to how insanely efficient it was for "glueing" together various forms of public transport. I could hop from transport hub to transport hub insanely quickly and the entire system suddenly worked in a way that did not happen with walking or biking. Some people say walk, but it's too slow and a 1/2 mile "walk" section on a complicated transport route would be impractical on foot. Biking is fast enough for long trips but massively inconvenient for quick trips to a store or park or restaurant. A scooter on the other hand could be with me all day, I can take it into the store with me, I can take it on the bus. Transition cost from arrival to getting on the bus or walking into a store was seconds instead of minutes with a bike. The scooter had tons of upsides and the only downside was, at the time, that it was kind of embarrassing to be seen on. People talk to much about the "last-mile" as if the only travel people do is on massive transport corridors to and from work. The scooter solves the transport mesh, the hops and transitions of actual day-to-day living.