Motorized scooters, like these from Bird and Spin, have been showing up in cities around the United States. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News) You’ll find them obstructing sidewalks in Austin, draped on trash cans in San Francisco and tipped over like dominoes in Los Angeles. In Washington, workers dredged two of them from where Rock Creek flows into the Potomac River. They’re Internet-connected scooters, and a bunch of well-funded tech start-ups think they might just upend how we get around cities. First, they have to survive a speed bump: jerks. Companies including Bird Rides , LimeBike , Spin and Waybots this spring flooded a half-dozen cities with the motorized two-wheelers. Then came a wave of scooters behaving badly. And in some cities, the era of start-ups disrupting first and seeking forgiveness later seems to have worn out its welcome. “I’m going to go back and live in the 1850s, and […]