Brooklyn moped share is being used by reckless drivers

Greenpoint Post


North Brooklyn residents are speaking out about the dangerous misuse of a recently deployed fleet of rent-by-the-minute mopeds in the area.

The mopeds, put on the streets last month by tech startup company Revel, are reportedly being driven through local parks at high speeds, used without helmets, and taken on the highway.

Revel released its fleet of 1,000 mopeds across more than 20 neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens on May 29 after a successful test run in the Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bushwick neighborhoods. 

Residents in North Brooklyn, however, have taken to social media and spoken to the Greenpoint Post about their apparent misuse since the official launch last month.

One resident, Angie Bee, says she witnessed two boys riding a Revel moped on the shoulder of the southbound BQE near the Metropolitan/Marcy entrance. Neither boy was wearing a helmet, Bee said, and both were laughing.

“My boyfriend pulled up next to them, shouted something about them being stupid for not wearing helmets and we took off,” Bee said. “They didn’t reply, they just stopped smiling.”

Revel mopeds max out at 29 miles per hour and users must agree to not drive them on the highway, bridges, or through tunnels, and to use the helmets provided with each bike, before being allowed to create an account on the company’s mobile app.

When signing up, applicants must provide a picture of their driver’s license, which the company uses to check the applicant’s driving record, as well as a selfie to prove that the license is their’s. Applicants must be 21 years of age and older.

Greenpoint resident Haley Papageorge, who lives across the street from McGolrick Park, says she recently observed a group of young men riding the mopeds through the park around 9 p.m. at night, honking their horns and yelling at pedestrians to “get out of the f***ing way.”

“I went to the window and saw about five scooters flying through the park from the Nassau and Russell entrance,” Papageorge said. “There were definitely people out walking.”

DSNY app inaccurate

182nd Street in Fresh Meadows not looking too plowed @NYCSanitation @NYCMayorsOffice pic.twitter.com/aBOODkY7oK

— (((Rory Lancman))) (@RoryLancman) January 8, 2017

From NY1:

A Queens councilman says the city's PlowNYC program did not measure up during this weekend's snowstorm.

City Councilman Rory Lancman uploaded videos on Twitter showing snow-covered streets in his district.

He said many of them had not been plowed in hours, or at all.

This, despite the streets being marked as recently cleared on PlowNYC - the city's public database that tracks which streets have been plowed.

City Council Member proposes app for trash truck tracking

From CBS:

They’re a welcome sight when garbage piles up on the sidewalk, but getting stuck behind a sanitation truck is no fun for city drivers.

“Cause I always get stuck behind a garbage truck and it always makes me late in the mornings,” Tamara Mose told CBS2’s Jessica Borg.

Especially — she said — while driving in her neighborhood, on narrow one-way streets, like in some Brooklyn neighborhoods.

“It’s the most frustrating thing as a New Yorker,” City Councilman David Greenfield said.

Greenfield said he has a bill that would bring that frustration to an end.

On Wednesday, he proposed making it a requirement for the Sanitation Department to publicly release its GPS data on trucks so that drivers can see exactly where trucks are in real-time.

“It’s really a win, win, win. A win for the drivers, it’s also a win for the sanitation workers, it’s very frustrating when you’re trying to do your job. People are honking, they’re yelling,” Greenfield said.

Greenfield said the GPS data could then be used to create navigation apps to warn people about what streets to avoid.

New app lets you report park problems

From the Daily News:

The free ParentPatrol app — launched this week by state Assemblyman Ron Kim — gives parents and caregivers a quick way to report drunks, drug users and unsavory adults hanging around parks and playgrounds to the city Police Department, Parks Department and local elected officials.

Users can take videos or send a message to report potentially dangerous conditions in the city’s busy green spaces.

Kim (D-Queens), a father of two young girls, said he worked with a software developer to create the app after two frightening incidents took place at Bowne Playground in July. A 12-year-old girl was sexually abused and robbed at the Flushing park in the early morning. In an unrelated case at the same spot, a man went up to an 8-year-old boy, picked him up and squeezed his chest.

He emphasized that people should still call 911 in an emergency and that the app helps track quality-of-life problems.

As of Wednesday afternoon, almost 400 people had signed up for the app and reported more than 70 incidents ranging from drunken behavior to drug use.

Pols promote app that violates zoning regulations

I'd like to share part of a press release I received yesterday:

"SpotPog – an innovative new app that allows drivers to find free and paid spots – launched in Brooklyn today with the support of elected officials and local organizations. Leaders praised SpotPog as a smart way to address the city’s parking problem, and to help improve the environment and street safety in high-traffic neighborhoods.

“Brooklyn has a serious parking problem,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. “We need an innovative approach to help residents find spots in their own neighborhoods, or when running errands and attending local events. SpotPog has the potential to meet this mission, employing our smartphones in a smart way to help reduce traffic congestion, decrease street-level pollution, and allow for more drivers to visit our local business districts.”

“New York drivers are constantly wasting time, money and energy hunting for parking spaces,” said New York City Council Environmental Chair Donovan Richards. “Circling for parking also causes tons of preventable street-level pollution a year, creating health risks in our neighborhoods. SpotPog will help alleviate New York's parking-related problems with a free, innovative app designed to drive our communities into a healthier, safer future.”

Starting today, SpotPog users will be able to swap public street spots for free, enabling those who have downloaded the app to save time by not hunting for spots. Drivers earn credits (“Pogs”) every time they give away a free spot to another user, and those credits can then be used to claim a free space later on.

SpotPog users who own driveways will also be able to post their driveways for rent on the app. Driveway owners can set their own hourly prices and availability, creating a new parking option for the millions of city drivers who have trouble finding a space while running errands, attending events or parking in their own neighborhood. SpotPog’s technology allows driveway owners to complete transactions without even being home."

________________________________________________________

Ok, so what this basically does is

- privatize a public resource. Individual drivers will be benefiting off of something that is supposed to be available to the public. Not to mention the chaos this thing will likely cause when you have people racing to the scene of a parking space that just opened up. Plus, do we really want to encourage people to fiddle with their phones while they are driving?

- create commercial enterprises in residential zones. This app is basically an AirBnB type system for driveways. I doubt anyone wants a commercial parking lot opening up on their residential street. Believe it or not, it is illegal for a homeowner to rent out their garage or driveway to someone else. Were the Department of Finance, the IRS and NYS Department of Taxation and Finance notified of this?

Why are elected officials promoting this garbage put forth by a private company? Don't they have attorneys advising them on what's kosher and what isn't?

I think it's time for an investigation by the AG.

Why council members do things against their constituents' best interests

From the NY Post:

Two City Council members who have accepted more than $9,000 in campaign donations from the livery industry yesterday joined the suit against the city to stop yellow cabs from taking smartphone hails.

Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Washington Heights) and Elizabeth Crowley (D-Queens) filed papers in Manhattan Supreme Court in support of the livery industry.

The suit, which was filed by Livery Roundtable, Black Car Assistance Corp. and several car-service firms, claims the city’s e-hail app pilot program violates the law giving livery cabs the exclusive right to accept prearranged trips.

Both pols said the campaign contributions were irrelevant.

From the NY Observer:

However, a source directed Betabeat towards records from the New York City Campaign Finance Board and New York City’s Doing Business Portal, which show that the two Council Members joining the case both received financial contributions from livery and black car lobbyists as well as the plaintiffs in the case. Council Member Rodriguez, a former livery driver himself, received $3,000 during 2010 and 2011 from both Dial 7 and Carmel, two of the lead plaintiffs in the case. Council Member Crowley was given $2,200 between 2010 and 2011 from lobbying firm Constantinople and Vallone, which represents the two black car companies, as well as from their lawyer, Randy Mastro.

For Rodriguez, Dial 7 and Carmel count as some of his top non-Union donors, and Avik Kabessa, Carmel’s CEO, is also President of the Livery Roundtable.

Although Council Member Rodriguez’s office said no official comment would be given until tomorrow morning, Eric Yun, Crowley’s Communications Director, called the donations a coincidence that was diverting attention away from the real issues.

“These donations were made more than two years ago, and Council Member Crowley is close to the Vallone family, having worked with Vallone’s son, Peter Vallone Jr., in the City Council for years. Peter Vallone and Anthony Constantinople’s firm represent many clients in the city,” Yun said.

Reread Mr. Yun's statement and let it sink in for awhile. Whoops.

Now let's think about this from the consumers' perspective. Yellow cabs generally cost less to ride than livery cars. Why would these council members support the public - their constituents - paying more for a service unless they were lobbied and legally bribed by the special interest trying to stop this? And since yellow cabs are not readily available in most outer borough neighborhoods, and most livery service trips occur in the outer boroughs, how much business will the livery drivers really lose because of an app?

Find your bus schedule

I don't usually publish product press releases, but I thought this one might be advertising something useful to folks.

NYCBigApps Winner Brings Free Bus App to Queens

Roadify, a free iPhone app that combines transit schedules and official alerts with live reports from riders, recently launched an update that covers every bus line in Queens. No small feat, considering how few resources, app or otherwise, that are available to Queens bus riders.

Until Roadify, there was no way for Queens straphangers to find bus schedules anywhere other than the bus stop, let alone find service advisories and rider reports. With the new update, however, riders can use their cell phones to get the best idea about when the bus is coming and if there’s problem, find out why from other riders.

With this novel approach, Roadify recently took Grand Prize in the city’s NYC BigApps Competition and was later named the MTA’s “App of the Week” in the Authority’s new initiative to highlight top local transit apps.

Roadify actually worked with the MTA to fix a missing dataset that housed the majority of Queens lines, and are happy to now have buses in all five boroughs and Long Island covered in their free service, which also covers NYC subways, traffic, and parking.

“We received a bunch of emails and tweets from our users asking ‘What about the Queens buses?’,” said Roadify designer Brian Bush. “Now we have a positive answer for them."

With summer temps peaking in the 100s in recent weeks, Queens bus riders are happy to save a few minutes waiting at the stop any way they can. Now, thanks to your cell phone, that may actually be possible.

Download Roadify’s free iPhone app in iTunes or at app.net/Roadify. The service is also usable for free via Text Message, by texting ROAD to 95495 (standard data rates apply).

For more information on this story, please contact Dylan Goelz, Roadify’s Head of Marketing and Design, at dylan@roadify.com or (904)673-6866.

Now if only the buses showed up when they were supposed to...