Electric scooters may soon arrive in New York – but is the city ready?

The micromobility revolution that has hit the cities of the United States has not yet arrived in New York, but after conquering the west coast through a combination of rule breaking and eventual cooperation, electric scooter manufacturers are seeking now to distinguish itself boroughs.

As The Verge pointed out, there is money to be earned there; Bird, one of the leading scooter companies, has been valued at $ 2 billion in recent months. And New York, with its 8 million inhabitants, more than half of whom regularly use public transit, could become a "great scooter city", according to Gil Kazimirov, general manager of Lime, the start-up Micromovement.

But before this money can flow, we must convince a skeptical population, some of whom see electronic scooters. on the same plane as Thanos. We must also change the laws and make the streets safer for the more robust version of the scooters that Bird wants to bring to New York.

These first two necessities are those on which Bird currently seems to be concentrating, the company that is trying most to enter the New York market. Start-up, based in Santa Monica, woo politicians on both sides Eric Ulrich (a Republican who pushed for unfettered competition between snowmobile companies) nor Robert Cornegy (a Democrat who participated in the recent demonstration of Bird, Bed-Stuy) commented on their feelings about scooters e. Bird even took one of the city's most prominent street safety advocates, pointing out that he was approaching the expansion of New York City in a responsible way. , who usually does not hold the upsets "break shit, apologize later".

Bird also tried to convince skeptics by showing them how his service was working – there was one at Bed-Stuy in September and another earlier this month to show that scooters could be a key element. the imminent train L close. Bird donated scooters for a mass ride from the Myrtle-Wyckoff station to the Grand Street stop, which will be a starting point for a series of SBS routes from Brooklyn to Manhattan. The demo not only offered insight into how scooters work, but also a proof of concept as to how they could help people get around if the trains are packed.

The group seemed to seduce Eric Adams, president of Brooklyn Borough, who liked his scooter enough to throw it in his SUV. present yourself at another press conference this morning in Brooklyn Heights. Before the start of the hike, Adams told crowd gathered in the pedestrian square of the Myrtle-Wyckoff stop, the very symbol of reclaiming the streets in cars, that "too many drivers make decisions for millions of New -Yorkians who are not on board. Selfishly, they think they have to drive alone. Although Mr. Adams does not have the power to vote for the bill to legalize electric scooters, he has at least provided rhetorical support for their legalization.

Dave Colon

Dave Colon

This effort is led in part by City Councilor Rafael Espinal, who announced his support for scooters in a Daily News op-ed earlier this year, and is currently working with the chair of the transport committee, Ydanis Rodriguez, to present a bill legalizing them. Espinal's interest in scooters is motivated not only by their potential utility in stopping train L, but also by the possibility of including his district (he represents parts of Bushwick, Brownsville and Cypress Hills). ) in a Citi Bike transport system. still to achieve significantly.

"What I would like to see is an expansion of modes of transportation, not only in Manhattan, but also in outlying areas," Espinal told Curbed. "We have Citi Bike, but it has not yet reached eastern New York and the other neighborhoods on the outskirts of outlying areas. We must make sure that this transportation is available to everyone. "

But if scooter companies can organize events and work with elected officials, it is the question of safety – and the aggressive overhaul of city streets – that will no doubt determine how widely scooters are adopted in New York. York. Although their maximum speed of 15 km / hour makes them intrinsically riskier than bicycles, a Washington Post An article on increasing the number of scooter emergency room visits indicates that the number of bike lanes in Washington, DC, is one of the reasons the city has not seen the same rate of increase in the number of injuries than other US cities.

Bird himself has put a special emphasis on bike lanes, telling Curbed that "protected and well-maintained bike paths are part of our vision of a safe future for all road users, regardless of whether or not they are safe." they are on foot, by bike or by scooter. has also promised $ 1 per day and per scooter in every city in which it operates to help cities pay for more protected bike paths, but at least in New York, the opposition to bike lanes has less to do with the price that with more parking spaces. And on this front, radical thinking seems to be in short supply.

Cornegy, whose neighborhood includes mainly Bed-Stuy, told Streetsblog that he would "defend more protected bike lanes" when he would attend Bird's Bedtime Stuy event, but that he was also a prominent opponent of the Classon Avenue bike path, which was installed following the death of a cyclist in 2016.

The city's addition of cycling infrastructure has not prevented community boards from building new bike lanes, and other improvements are still at the mercy of a good mix of political pressures. Even Adams – who called for something as ambitious as the Flatbush Avenue bike path next to Prospect Park – was ambivalent about the relationship between community boards and the need to quickly move space away from cars.

"We should never rely on people's voices," Adams said after the Brooklyn Heights press conference. "[Community boards’] The consultative status helps us when we are planning bike paths, because the bike paths are personalized to these communities. This does not mean that a community council should have the right of veto if it is unreasonable. Allow community councils to have space to express their concerns; but at the same time, do not allow anyone in the government to interfere in the road and prevent any progress. "

Espinal said that "with regard to the existing network in New York," the city can do more to make sure that bike lanes are acceptable and are not blocked ", although it has preferred seeing the results of a scooter pilot program before committing to any type of radical redevelopment of the street.

Alissa Walker, Editor-in-Chief for Urban Planning at Curbed, has already explained that micromobility offers cities a unique opportunity to get away from the car. Instead of reacting once scooters are used, the design of the street must be part of the conversation. at the same time. Without being comfortable on the streets, people do not want to drive scooters, says Walker, or end up on the sidewalks, which just would not work in New York.

One of the ideas the city can take is to adopt the Vision Zero Design Standard, a series of pedestrian, cycling and transit improvements that are implemented every time a road needs to be repaired. "The construction of protected bike lanes usually takes longer than emptying a scooter truck into the street," explains Joseph Cutrufo of Transport Alternatives. "The best way to accommodate more people on motorcycles and scooters is to incorporate safer street redevelopment projects into regular repaving projects. So every time a street is repaved, we have the opportunity to make our streets more accommodating for New Yorkers on two wheels and, more specifically, save lives. Although Cutrofo states that the idea was approved by a majority of the members of the municipal council, it has not yet been instituted in the repaving of the streets.

Agnostic / skeptical about scooters, Bird's demonstration at the beginning of this month has certainly borne fruit: the mass of runners did not seem to have big problems with the streets of Bushwick which are barely habitable for bicycles on certain sections, especially the very heavy stretch of Knickerbocker and Morgan avenues north of Flushing Avenue. If you rent a view, you might see a vision of the future where people used the scooters in peace, although they were lucky in clear bike paths and a shortage of double-parking cars in the secondary streets.

And while some fear that scooter builders "impose their will" on the city, the fact remains that automakers have already imposed their will in New York in an unparalleled way for electronic scooters . Plus, if you're in the street, you can already see the scooters are there. The same afternoon of the bird demonstration, I saw a scooter rider fishing in Ann Street, a few blocks from the Town Hall. Later, I came across an electric scooter pilot named Mike while I was walking in Flatbush Avenue.

"It's convenient, you can slide from one car to another," said Mike when asked what he liked about his push scooter that he bought online. He also sees greater benefits for the city if it embraces the scooter revolution. "I think you can really help the environment and even create new businesses. The cars are nil, and you could open many shops specializing in the maintenance of the scooter and the sale of scooters, while facilitating the task of the transport system. "