Toronto outright banned a startup I was helping out with in 2021, they ended up packing up and moving it to Miami- Toronto has a rule that the city should not be made more inaccessible to folks with disabilities, and that a delivery robot could potentially cause an accessibility issue on the sidewalk for blind or wheelchair using folks. They didn't reach out to the startup, or tell them about the vote happening at council, they did invite the accessibility advocacy groups in. I agree the startup should have been banned (against my own interests) pending a review, however, I also believe a review of the technology and startup would have left very little room for concern. That said, I'm still skeptical robots on sidewalks are a great idea, ideally they can operate on the roadways.
This issue is going to become an issue with AVs too, if availability is the value prop and number of vehicles creates the availability and there are no humans to drive, I presume we end up with another situation where sidewalks across the world were littered with thousands of those lime/bird scooter things.
These robots would be a significant improvement over the current electric bike and scooter riders who not only drive recklessly on the roads but also take over the sidewalks. The situation has become lawless in the city, with many delivery drivers disregarding traffic rules entirely, they are a menace to pedestrians and vehicle drivers. I would like the city council to outlaw fast food delivery entirely, accept for the disabled. Young people need to get out more and should pick up their own falafel.
The thing with those guys, as you have rightly pointed out is for all their problems they do get out of the way and filter through traffic (dangerously as you point out)
A single startup with cooler sized robots tottering down the sidewalk is fine. When every single delivery company gets on board then we have a shit load of those things kicking around and in the way. I have the same issues in cities with those scooters that get left all over the place.
If you're referring to Toronto, I couldn't agree more. Couple times a week I find myself confronting an ebike deliverer on the sidewalk and kick him off.
They are frustrating to be sure, especially the moped versions, but are imo still far better to be around then drivers. I'd much rather the bike lanes to be together and throttled ebikes moved to the road, but it wouldn't make near as much a difference as getting people to not run reds or put down their phones.
In fairness cities are not legally required to sent notices so they won't. They do not really want you to know and fight against the changes. This was a failure of your business leaders. They needed to be more involved following city hall lobbying for their business. Losing a license to operate is a bigger deal then whatever priorities were focused on.
> They didn't reach out to the startup, or tell them about the vote happening at council
It's not the city's responsibility to do that. If your business depends on particular actions by a city's legislature, it's generally on you to be reading their agenda.
This issue is going to become an issue with AVs too, if availability is the value prop and number of vehicles creates the availability and there are no humans to drive, I presume we end up with another situation where sidewalks across the world were littered with thousands of those lime/bird scooter things.
https://www.therobotreport.com/toronto-city-council-votes-to...