Micromobility Should Not Be Overlooked
The little sibling to big transportation projects can fill in the gaps we so desperately need to get around the city.
Every week, I find myself reaching for Citibike, New York’s docked bike sharing system, to help me run errands or catch my friends for a night out. 30 minute walks from the subway turn into a quick 15 minute bike ride. Everything and anything is right around the corner, with the only limit being how far I’d like to bike. And with e-bikes that job becomes even easier, making the trek across a bridge into other boroughs a breeze, no longer having to wait 15 min to catch the next L train.
As defined by the U.S. Department of Transportation, micromobility refers to “any small, low-speed, human- or electric-powered transportation vehicle”. Micromobility solutions, such as e-scooters, cargo bikes, e-boards, onewheels, and of course, traditional bikes, have rapidly grown in popularity over the past decade or so.
If you’ve visited any major city in the last decade or so, you’ve seen bicycle-sharing systems rolled out, often situated near major train or tram stations, alongside streets and alleyways, following along a bike path of some kind. Looking at NY alone, we see Citibike continue to be used in record-breaking numbers, dispelling concerns that Covid discouraged biking, with tons more folks riding during Summer Streets when streets are open and safer for riders.
This is even more obvious with electric scooters in NYC, where the city saw over 1.4 million rides during a e-scooter pilot launched in the East Bronx since August 2021, with a recent expansion this past June 2024 into East Queens. Is it scootering or scooting? Scooting sounds so much more fun.
In general, people are motivated to use micromobility for a myriad of reasons — shorter travel times, increased flexibility on door-to-door trips, reduced pollution, or even just a more fun way to get around the city. They offer a solution to the “last mile” problem, or the final leg of a journey, which is often a challenge due to the increased urbanization and the inefficiency of resources today to get people and goods to their destination.
Micromobility is a key part of solving that puzzle. These smaller vehicles can navigate the landscape better, saving folks time and improving everyones’ lives from package delivery to getting kids to school. There’s also a tremendous opportunity for micromobility to expand access around the city for more folks, filling in gaps between large public transportation and cars, while also reducing pollution, emissions, noise, and overall traffic violence.
Yet, there are two main barriers that limit micromobility adoption.
Safety: Cities need to make safer streets for micromobility riders, making roads safer for everyone through modernized lanes, widening existing spaces, and adding new design safety measures to ensure cars are separated.
Accessibility and Affordability: Micromobility vehicles should be easily available for all types of riders, and not be limited based on location and price. Services should expand their stations and zones out to new areas where it is a transit desert, while also reducing costs across the board.
A Safer Experience
What’s consistent across all the research done around micromobility, is that the biggest barrier to adoption is safety. Most people are too scared that they may get into an accident with a car or another rider. Even I worry about my safety every time I get onto the road, keeping my eyes and ears open to the chaotic cacophony congesting the streets. This is even more apparent in the gender gap of Citi-bikers in NYC.
On the flip side, for non-riders, negative perceptions behind micromobility also stem from the potential dangers of crashing into a bike or scooter. I’ve often have to swerve around people and cars on the poorly marked sidewalks and streets, just because I had no dedicated lane for myself or the direction I need to go.
Without a safe dedicated space, people will choose to take safer options to get around. We’ve seen it time and time again in the news, where bikers and scooterists are blamed for crashes, with more than 90% of crashes reported in NYC between 2014-2019 to be on streets without bike lanes.
But where can riders expect to go if there is not place set for them? And even if there are roads for micromobility, if it is not intentionally built with an adequate amount of space or safety, it might as well not exist. As these spaces get built, regulations and rules ensuring that they continue to stay safe are also required.
This situation continues to be dangerous for everyone involved the longer we don’t modernize. Choosing to take micromobility must feel as safe and easy as getting into the car or going onto the subway.
Adding and Expanding Bike Lanes
One of the main ways a city can address this problem is by updating the available streets and roads, whether that be through repurposing certain lanes into bike lanes or expanding the existing lanes today. Separated infrastructure and improved pavement conditions conveys intention and safety from the city, encouraging more folks to ride out on the street.
There have been countless times where I’ve been forced into divots or potholes in the road, gripping my bike so I or my bag in the front basket won’t fall out. The lanes themselves are also not always connected, sometimes jutting into a sidewalk, switching from the left to the right side of the road, or what actually is most often, just disappearing altogether.
This solution goes hand in hand with efforts to expanding sidewalks and adding bus lanes, slowly changing the landscape of streets with redesigns that move it from being car-centric to making it intentionally people-focused.
With different types of micromobility vehicles riding at different speeds and slightly different sizes (cargo bikes especially so), there needs to be an increased size of lanes by at least 25%. When possible, two-way lanes should also be added to help reduce “salmoning”, or riding against traffic. There’s also a compelling argument to make more than one lane so that faster e-vehicles can pass more safely.
What’s absolutely atrocious today is the lack of progress the city has done to increase the number of bike lanes at all in NYC. With a commitment of a total of 250 miles in the five years from 2022 to 2026, the city has established a whopping 68 out of the 250 miles so far, with only 9 out of 50 needed to do in 2024.
For those in other cities, establishing bike lanes is one of the first ways to encourage and provide the option for micromobility around your city. Petitioning city council to establish barriers or at the very least paint a bike lane is a great starting point.
At the same time, connecting the bike lanes in equitable ways similar to cars make it for a seamless experience to get anywhere around the city. Establishing equal access by parks and greenways such as by lifting restrictions on e-micromobility access to wherever traditional bikes to go is critical. No one should have to scramble to figure out how to connect broken bike lane paths. The network of bike lanes should be as complete as a regular car street or pedestrian sidewalk.
Hilly terrain and long distances is actually a major reason why micromobility will continue to drastically help. Most urban and city environments can be traversed with the available micromobility, with electric scooters and e-bikes help challenge the stigma folks have. With proper training, just like driving a car, getting around drastic gains and drops in elevation is just as easy.
Updating Signs and Roads for Micromobility
A common challenge for micromobility users is the lack of visibility they have. Drivers may often not see them or even pedestrians, given the amount of parking or the way a curb is designed.
Most often, the easiest way this can be done is adding paint or bollards. Higher traffic areas should have tougher, more permanent infrastructure, which can repurpose that surrounding area in new ways such as bike parking, public charging stations, plants and benches, outdoor dining, or other neighborhood amenities.
Roads and signs also need to be updated with accurate way-finding and markings so that all users, especially pedestrians, are clear where they are allowed or not. Lighting at night should also be required, so that riders can get around at night and in inclement weather.
In general, weather does play a factor into people’s consideration of micromobility, with slight variations depending on the type of micromobility used. There is limited information at scale around the types of patterns people have on using micromobility in adverse climate as each city is different and has a different average temperature — but in general, people do ride less in worse climates.
In my opinion, the biggest cause for concern is really around the availability of micromobility in the winter. While the heat and rain are not ideal to be riding outside, the biggest problem is snow, which disrupts the riders’ safety out on the road. And yet, I don’t see this as much of a major problem in NYC because the city actually does a good job at ensuring the bike lanes are cleared, just like the car roads. Research shows that if the city is designed for riding in inclement weather, people will ride.
Setting New Safety Standards
It goes without saying that all of this needs to come with strict and enforced safety standards. Battery fires are a valid concern and should be prevented at all costs. But that does not mean we should fear or restrict charging.
Instead, cities should work with the fire department to establish new rules around safe battery storage and charging, working with residential, commercial, and city-owned building owners. To up-cycle old batteries and prevent careless disposal activities, cities should manage a battery buyback program for damaged, non-compliant or uncertified lithium-ion batteries. Creating a trade-in program for exchanges or cash will mitigate fire risk concerns.
Fining vehicles that park in bike lanes should also be a top priority to help create a safe environment. Yet, it isn’t apparent to me that it is actually enforced, and in fact appears to the least enforcement related to traffic problems in the city, with the most common response being that it “does not fall under the Police Department’s jurisdiction” or that they don’t have evidence of a violation, given that it often takes them at least 3.5 hours to respond, especially since many of the local government workers also illegally park here with their parking placards (NYPD is a big contributor to this problem).
Folks have pushed for legislation in NYC that rewards people with cash when they send in photos of cars and trucks that block the roads (similar to an idling bill), but it is incredibly watered down from the original $175 ticket it used to be. The critical changes include removal of the 25 percent award from the $175 ticket, requiring a digital training course that needs to be completed before you can file a report, limited initial expansion, requiring signage that indicates they can be fined, and that the car must be unoccupied. Reading this, it’s hard not to be discouraged that this bill is essentially never going to get used.
With the advent of autonomous cameras set in buses, drivers that park in bus lanes will get fined. Can we get this to expand to drivers in the bike lanes? 🥹
Up in Toronto, we got a traffic police officer who got famous for ticketing cars parked in bike lanes — can we get her here?
Another big concern is the delivery app drivers and how fast they speed through the city. On the one hand, it isn’t entirely their fault as many of these companies promote unsafe working conditions with a fast delivery promise within 15 minutes, directly endangering anyone in the streets as they zigzag driving the wrong way, salmoning back through on sidewalks or roads.
There are clear legislative acts states and cities can do to prevent this type of behavior, but short of getting lawmakers to agree, the quickest path to action is changing the roads, as I’ve described above.
During the rollout of bikes and scooters, it is also necessary to teach people how to safely ride bikes and scooters, especially with the electric ones. There are free adult classes you can learn from taught by folks that do ride in the city. New education campaigns around battery charging and disposal should also be created, with additional materials for homeowners and building managers in multiple languages.
Safe street-use for traffic laws similar to driving a car should be available, especially after new infrastructure is added. Drivers themselves should receive updated education curriculum and be tested on the road to respect and watch out for micromobility users.
An Accessible and Affordable Option
One of the major limitations for micromobility adoption is its high price. Safety for any road user depends on how many other riders there are on in the same type of mode on the street, aka “safety in numbers”. More users bring about more safety and respect for riders.
The two main business model approaches in the space are either:
A one-time purchase to own the vehicle, similar to owning a car
Renting a docked or dockless vehicle, and returning it to an available zone (i.e. another dock or available space).
The purchase of a micromobility vehicle ranges in price. Generally the non-electric version of the vehicles are cheaper, with traditional road bikes around. E-scooters and e-bikes are more expensive, but often come with rebates to help spur the adoption of said vehicles. Various cities across the country provide subsidies, similar to purchasing an electric car — Portland, Seattle, Boulder, just to name a few.
In NYC, active legislation around a voucher point-of-sale rebate, federal tax credit and even a sales tax exempt can help to reduce the cost, as these costs often hurt the lowest income users the most.
Owning a vehicle does come with its own set of responsibilities, mainly around storing and locking the vehicle in safe locations to and from your destinations, which should be part of the cities responsibility. There need to be safe and secure places for people to lock and park their vehicles. It is useful to think about where people are getting around to identify the right parking spots, as well as invest in charging infrastructure stations and locations.
Renting a vehicle should also be more accessible and affordable.
In NYC, the first obvious example of this is with the Citibike docked infrastructure. They are placed on street parking or on the sidewalk, depending on a number of technical criteria including accessibility, truck loading, utilities, ADA requirements, and a number of other various uses and needs of the streets and sidewalks.
They make an effort to identify a high density of stations (one station every quarter mile), with DOT planners working with Community Boards for local feedback. It also requires partnering with MTA stations, parks, and other local buildings to establish these changes. You can find a list of all these shared micromobility stations across the country here.
Renting a vehicle from the distributed e-scooters or bikes across the city also costs quite a bit. This is often why cities provide discounted services for lower-income folks. At the same time, Citibike itself has something called the Bike Angels program that gamifies the system and ensures that there is a better distribution of bikes spread across the system. This balancing act is often the biggest problem with a shared micromobility service, but it can be abused.
The city should also construct street parking, charging and docking for private e-micromobility as well. Spots near every subway station or bus stops, short-term parking near commercial and dense residential districts should be identified. Overnight parking hangars and more theft-proof storage should also continue to be investigated and an investment in the city.
Electric car charging stations should also come with ways to charge electric micromobility vehicles. Current investment in NYC called “Street Deliveristas Hubs” are called to construct at least one public charging station in every City Council District. I believe prioritizing investment and charging stations for e-micromobility is a faster and more efficient use of the transportation budget.
This work at scale will require a huge amount of collaboration with city-owned buildings, including schools and NYCHA buildings, while also reaching out to residential and commercial buildings to include charging. Refitting existing parking garages or incentivizing ground-floor businesses and restaurants with outdoor dining are two ways to take advantage of the already available space, while not taking over sidewalk and road space. Tax incentives for new or retrofitted buildings can be created to help support those private owners that participate in this program.
Circling back to delivery drivers, an additional fee can also be charged to delivery app companies to operate in NYC, which can then be used to fund the additional changes needed to mark up the street and roads for safer streets, as well as safe battery exchange, charging and disposal. This isn’t entirely unheard of, and is a direct way to support this change as it charges the very users using these streets.
Riding Forward
The most effective and equitable way to beat these risks and challenges is to create a safer space for riders and financial infrastructure that encourages safe ridership. All users need to respect traffic laws, but without the right investment, riders will run amuck illegally and hurt everyone involve.
Other major potential reform projects that could help aid in the ability to provide for more space include curb management and parking reform.
Curb management is focused on identifying and optimizing the available curb space to ensure maximum mobility, safety and access, which is critical to understanding what space is available for micromobility. Yet, the data around how our curbs are used today is still incredibly underdeveloped. NYC alone is only just starting to collect the data for curbs this past year, working with third-parties to have this information.
Parking reform is reevaluating the zoning required for buildings and the necessary space dedicated for cars along side street curbs or in parking garages. Unlocking more space in the streets could provide more lanes that can be actively used by riders, or even adding sidewalk space.
Both of these deserve their own pieces, so I won’t get into the weeds here, and please subscribe if you want to keep up to date for when they drop.
More data also needs to continue to be collected around where to best improve the streets and curbs. This is an entirely separate topic around how to best target these locations, with the advent of AI and camera identification to track data points), which can be used to inform the city on where certain lanes need more attention due to dangerous quick stops and sharp swerves in the road.
Granular data around the crashes, fatalities and injuries are critical, and getting information from private companies to release this anonymized data is also incredible helpful to target key problem areas. Even picking whether to integrate dockless and docked vehicles can best come from understanding the space itself.
I think there’s also a genuine case to renaming these “bike” lanes to be more inclusive of other micromobility riders. The history of “bikes” go far back, bringing with it a lot of baggage that contemporary folks may react strongly to, seeing these lanes as an addition to the street instead of the core identity for what makes up a street.
There are probably still a lot of unanswered questions you have may have about micromobility, so feel free to drop a comment or ask a question! But one of my first suggestions to get out is to better understand the city yourself to see why it is a valuable form of transportation that we should consider for a safer and more sustainable option.
Take a bike or scooter around, and ride it around where you need to get to. Take your usual path or road and see what can be improved by micromobility in those last mile steps. In NYC, ride out in Central Park or Prospect Park, or down the West Side Highway. Try the same by crossing one of the bridges, like Brooklyn Bridge, with an e-bike to see how much easier it can be!