The rise of electric scooter fleets in cities around the globe happened almost overnight. By making transportation fun, they quickly took over a new market share and provided not only an easy way to travel but one that also prides itself in being sustainable. First becoming popular on the West Coast of the United States, scooters migrated eastward, eventually sweeping across Europe as well. Easy to maneuver and a convenient solution to get from place to place, we have to ask- can cities handle the accelerating rise of scooters and other forms of micromobility?
Micromobility is a broad term used to describe e-bikes, scooters, and skateboards. While the market is relatively new, its highly innovative approaches to implementation have jumpstarted the creation of dozens of companies. Research by McKinsey projects that the electric scooter market in Europe alone will be worth more than 150 billion dollars in the next decade, and double that in the United States. In the beginning, one of the main strategies to bring scooters to the masses was to drop them in high-foot trafficked areas to attract customers as quickly as possible- before city planners and officials had a chance to get involved. As people began to popularize this new form of mobility, governments were forced to quickly take action, oftentimes placing temporary bans on scooters- but not without rebuttal from the people who had found a new way to get around town. By the time that both sides would come to an agreement, the only feasible arrangement was that they could be ridden- but where? And by whom?
The 2018 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” pic.twitter.com/8EZvkUfbsO
— Madeline Eskind Litvack (@madeline) August 7, 2018
