Agree. Especially considering that rollerskates and rollerblades kind of already fulfill this function (just are bulkier, and take more skill to use, but honestly are easy enough to learn) and people don't usually use those for commuting in urban areas.
That said, when I lived in Chicago, I used to see a lady who rollerbladed to the office. I am sure you're thinking, "Young techie, jeans & t-shirt", but you'd be wrong. 40's or late 30's, dressed like an exec. Wearing a dress, make-up, string of pearls, with a fancy handbag, nice haircut. I don't think this is a relevant data point (clearly an outlier), I just thought it was awesome and wanted to share.
> That said, when I lived in Chicago, I used to see a lady who rollerbladed to the office.
I used to skateboard from a lot by the Metra station to the office @ State and Madison.
Most fellow commuters I encountered were visibly bothered by sharing the walkways with someone adult-sized traveling 2-3X their speed. I'd expect a similar level of antisocial friction with these shoes.
Though it has been well over a decade since I did that, maybe people have since warmed up to sharing sidewalks with ebikes/scooters by now.
Most ebike/scooter use is done in the street from what I've seen. Streets are the right place for ebikes, which are basically mopeds, though I don't think escooters are safe on the street for users nor on the sidewalk for pedestrians.
It would feel extremely sketchy to ride an escooter on the sidewalk with all the blind corners or entryways people are liable to pop out from.
The best thing you could do with an escooter is to do what bike riders do to be safe, which is to take the entire lane. Car's might get pissed and honk when they pass you, but its better to force them to merge into a separate lane to get around you, than to try to squeeze through the same lane you are in and force you into parked cars or the gutter.
Oh trust me, I wouldn't feel good about riding an e-scooter on a sidewalk either, they're too fast and it's a nuance to the pedestrians sidewalks are built for. But I also wouldn't feel personally safe riding an e-scooter on a street; the small wheels of a usual scooter make it inherently unstable at the sort of speeds the electric motor can easily propel it to.
Basically I don't think there is any safe and responsible way to use an e-scooter. I don't think they should exist, it's just a bad idea. e-bikes are great though.
From personal experience, Chicago is kind of both the best case and the worst case for rollerblading: it's very flat and has nice wide sidewalks, but the sidewalks and even the streets are pretty rough and require large wheels for a smooth ride.
Having a good amount of reasonably well maintained dedicated bike lanes would have made rollerblading to work a lot easier!
Chicago's pavement will always be in difficult shape due to the climate and, more importantly, the incredible amounts of road salt used to keep the roads ice-free.
I am seeing more and more e-bikes though, which, since you can keep up with traffic relatively well, allow you ride in the car lane under most circumstances. That's what I do, and if some dickhead really feels the need to pass me when I'm going >25mph, I'll give them a wave at the next light. And probably be shot in the chest one of these days.
I wonder where the break-even point hits that it becomes cheaper to plumb hot water pipes or electrified heating elements under better-built sidewalks than to resurface every year.
Totally agree. I biked around the streets, and it's tough. Bike lanes are somewhat respected by drivers, and somewhat respected by people parking on the street, which in aggregate makes them not all that well respected...
People get creamed on bikes all the time in bike lanes. Pedestrians on the sidewalks and bike paths just don't pay attention to anything other than what is 3-4 feet from them, and are always forcing you to dodge if you have any kind of speed if you're just even jogging.
It's more a cultural problem than a city planning problem. Contrast how seriously bike lanes are treated in (say) Munich, which is very seriously.
That said, when I lived in Chicago, I used to see a lady who rollerbladed to the office. I am sure you're thinking, "Young techie, jeans & t-shirt", but you'd be wrong. 40's or late 30's, dressed like an exec. Wearing a dress, make-up, string of pearls, with a fancy handbag, nice haircut. I don't think this is a relevant data point (clearly an outlier), I just thought it was awesome and wanted to share.