I would like to give a completely different reason why the Segway sucks.
Great public transit blows it out of the water.
Consider a trip to a city like Berlin and then travel from there to Munich, with lots of travel in the city. Renting a Segway isn't adequate because you commonly want to travel long distances. You also don't want to deal with theft, break downs, weather patterns, etc.
Now consider your habits in your local city - travel is prohibitive based on how far you can walk or with driving parking is commonly a problem.
Selling a bunch of expensive single person transportation units is solving the wrong problem. Making great public transit for cities solves transportation needs.
High quality public transportation plus bike sharing kiosks at every station and spread around nearby (i.e. a bunch of cheap single person transportation units) seems like the perfect transportation solution to me. Bikes extend the reach of the transit system by at least a mile, which would be a godsend given the lack of transit-supportive density in most American cities.
I meant paid bike sharing, like Velib. Despite JCDecaux's complaints, I think they're still making money off of it. From what I've read, their losses on the program are paid by the city after a certain point.
Great public transit blows it out of the water.
Consider a trip to a city like Berlin and then travel from there to Munich, with lots of travel in the city. Renting a Segway isn't adequate because you commonly want to travel long distances. You also don't want to deal with theft, break downs, weather patterns, etc.
Now consider your habits in your local city - travel is prohibitive based on how far you can walk or with driving parking is commonly a problem.
Selling a bunch of expensive single person transportation units is solving the wrong problem. Making great public transit for cities solves transportation needs.