The following was originally posted as an article on LinkedIn, prior to my employment with Superpedestrian.
As cities warm up to the micromobility movement, data collected by e-scooters holds the potential to inform the design of infrastructure that supports their use.
The Greater Boston area has a hard-earned reputation of being home to some of the worst drivers in the country. To make matters worse, current projections point to traffic on roadways tripling in urban areas over the next 30 years. Anyone who has driven in the Greater Boston area in the past 10 years should be upset; how could the traffic - and by extension, drivers - in this city get any worse? More forward-thinking individuals might ask: “How do I get to work without dealing with this shit anymore?”
Superpedestrian, a micro-mobility company born out of MIT and currently based in Cambridge, MA, is looking to make the transition simpler. Superpedestrian first rose to prominence through their award-winning design of the Copenhagen Wheel, a device that converts just about any bicycle into an e-assisted cruiser - turning your favorite bike into a more viable and sustainable transportation option for those that don’t want to get to their destination drenched in sweat.
Recently, I had the pleasure of participating in the Beta Testing for Superpedestrian’s next venture: their own model of the e-scooter first made popular by the tech-giants and Silicon Valley sweethearts Bird and Lime. While the two companies had conducted community trials in nearby Brookline (where I previously worked for a local Urban Planning firm), I was able to make use of the scooters sporadically - often relying on them for a quick and more direct alternative to bus travel to and from the office and grocery store, in addition to providing an outlet for the occasional joy ride.
In contrast, I’ve racked up nearly 100 hours testing Superpedestrian’s e-scooter, and I have to say: I’m sold. From a product standpoint, the scooter checks every box you could ask for: a sleek aesthetic, a short learning curve, and a ride that I can only describe as "zippy," making previously unwalkable distances timely and easy to manage.
In summary: the thing rips, man.
Other than a few bugs experienced throughout the beta (to whom I should give credit, as they were the reason I was being paid to ride around the city), the main issues I encountered weren’t with the scooters themselves. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the inconsistent bike infrastructure of Greater Boston and the well-documented behavior of the area's drivers contributed more to my headaches than the robotic purr of the scooter ever could.
As someone who has been relegated to a desk for the majority of my relatively short working life, 100 hours is a long time to ride a scooter. It's an even longer time to think - with no social feeds to thumb through, I had time to think about the combination of infrastructure and behavior that influenced my time on the road, in addition to the role of micromobility within the context of the smart cities movement.
I also listened to a lot of Beastie Boys.
The City: Infrastructure
The potential of e-scooters and other micro-mobile transportation options are limited by an infrastructure that favors cars.
Many complaints from early-adopter communities about e-scooters stem from what’s seen as unsafe or irresponsible riding on sidewalks. In reality, this is because scooter riders tend to feel much safer on sidewalks. During my many hours of testing, there were countless times when the available bike lane was occupied by either an idling car, construction, delivery truck, or an open car door. More often than not, this forced me to jump the curb and ride on the sidewalk. My main thought in these situations (fuck getting rear-ended on a scooter because someone’s getting Uber Eats) was definitely one of self-preservation versus following the rules of the road to a T.
It seems as though this feeling is shared by scooter riders throughout the country - depending on the street. A study in Portland, OR, found that when given the option of a usable bike lane or a sidewalk, only 8% of e-scooter riders opted for the sidewalk. In my case, sharing the road with cars made for a sketchy experience on main thoroughfares, as faster drivers already have to be constantly reminded by signage and road markings to give bikes some breathing room. This seems to be the root problem - and the same Portland study backs it up. For the same group of riders, sidewalk riding rose to 66% when traveling along roads with a speed limit above 35mph. In a city like Boston, known for its rage-inducing traffic, congestion, and oft-ignored speed limit, this makes it tough to be a scooter on a shared road.
So is safety just a speed problem? Not quite. Despite growing concerns over the safety of e-scooters, the problem once again might not be with the scooters, but the roads themselves. A recent CDC study out of Austin, TX documented an average of 20 e-scooting individuals injured for every 100,000 rides, compared to less than one injury (.75) in the same period for drivers of cars. However, a large portion of these injuries were linked to infrastructure-based hazards; in layman's terms: potholes, pavement cracks, and other signs of poorly maintained roadways.
Once the slow pace of regulation and infrastructural support catches up to technological innovation, the effective range of these new forms of transportation should grow as a result, potentially making micromobility less and less “micro”. A big issue with micro-mobile transportation is the lag time of adaptation. Many urban centers crippled by traffic and congestion have pledged to support efforts to diversify transportation options and create more walkable neighborhoods. The same cities still struggle to financially support infrastructure that make options like bikes or scooters a preferred form of transportation, forcing early adopters of micro-mobile vehicles to share the roads with cars and other vehicles that have a lot less at stake in the event of a fender-bender.
The People: Behavior
While infrastructure is lacking, it’s unfair to place blame solely on poor road conditions. As a city that underwent one of the most massive infrastructural projects (and arguably, failures) of the 21st century, why is Boston still plagued with some of the worst traffic on the East Coast? The answer could lie with its drivers, who are consistently ranked as some of the worst in the country. In fact, they’re so bad that it was newsworthy when Boston wasn’t declared the worst city of drivers in the country in 2018 (shout out to Baltimore). Even with a degree in sociology, I can’t begin to fathom how an upbringing in Massachusetts uniquely causes residents to make questionable decisions once behind the wheel.
This isn’t to say e-scooter riders are above making stupid decisions. Remember that study about e-scooter injuries? The same study indicated that of the injuries reported, a significant proportion were head injuries - which is concerning, but honestly not shocking when compared with the fact that less than 1% of injured riders were wearing a helmet. I’m not the first to note that helmets aren’t the sexiest look around - at best, I think they make you look like a bit of a dick - but not wearing a helmet while riding a bike or scooter basically shifting the question of the injury conversation from how to when you’ll hurt yourself.
The other main group of complaints surrounding the introduction of e-scooters and bike-shares have been the sidewalk clutter associated with their use. Improper parking and even “disposal” of e-scooters in Portland by vandals and opponents of the rising e-scooter movement have led to a decent amount of bad press for many micromobility companies - but a large portion of this can be tied to users’ social behavior, and not the scooters themselves.
Some companies have responded by encouraging responsible parking behavior as part of the overall experience. As I experienced in Brookline, MA community trials for Bird and Lime, users are now required to take a picture of their properly-parked scooters to ensure compliance. The trend seems to reflect the growing pains of the industry, which appears to be moving through its own strange form of puberty. As social perceptions of micromobility change and the ideal formats take shape (we’ve seen bikes and scooters rolled out, but there’s a thriving market for souped-up skateboards and one-wheels), the industry has the potential to change how we navigate cities, and may even convince diehard car owners to consider a change in lifestyle.
Until then, like any hormonal tween, the industry is young and growing fast. Adjustment to any new form of technology takes time, but seems to be headed in the right direction - some cities have established parking zones that have resulted in tidier streets; others have made it illegal to ride the scooters outside of bike lanes; and some have even attempted to enforce helmet use, with various levels of success.
Designing for a Micro-mobile City: A Checklist
In order to make sure that Boston’s reputation for bad driving doesn’t extend beyond its car-owning population, we need to research how micromobile users currently navigate the city. Luckily, this feature is already built-in to the Copenhagen wheel, which collects data ranging from noise, to altitude, exertion, and CO2 level. Superpedestrian’s e-scooter will collect a similar gamut of data, and help to paint a more complete picture of how different forms of micro-mobile users navigate urban areas. While the prospect of cruising through city streets is a major thrill of the micromobility movement, it's the data that is gathered in the process that's truly exciting. As stated by Andrew Small over at Citylab, this is enough to make me (a former Urban Planner & Designer) “geek out” over the possibilities.
Oblige me for a few hundred words:
Protected Lanes: Despite what we’d like to think, sharing isn’t always caring. As the car wins just about any game of chicken played on a road with exposed bike and scooter riders, protected lanes are always the ideal scenario for micro-mobile riders and cars alike.
Variable Speed Lanes: Less “zippy” options still require safe-zones. E-scooters and e-bikes traveling at higher speeds shouldn’t make riders of traditional bikes feel unsafe in their own lanes.
Location-based speed limits: During testing, Superpedestrian had implemented a demo on speed restrictions based on the geo-location of the scooter. In other words: the scooter had a built-in speed limit on previously determined streets. Implementing this on a city-wide scale could help to mitigate some of the perceived safety complaints surrounding e-scooters and e-bikes, while promoting safer and more predictable flows of micro-mobile traffic.
Dedicated Parking: While some cities have already adopted standards for e-scooter parking and bike-shares, creating dedicated spaces for parking can help to conserve what little public space is available for who it was originally intended: people.
Smart Infrastructure: As technology allows our cities to become smarter, integrating micro-mobile transit into the IoT (in this case, Infrastructure of Things) presents a number of exciting possibilities - some of which are already taking shape.
Soofa, another MIT-born and Cambridge-based startup, has already begun to install their solar-powered devices throughout various neighborhoods in Cambridge and Boston. Beginning with their solar-powered benches that provide wi-fi hotspots and phone charging services to pedestrians, they have found new ways to modernize the pedestrian experience. More recently, the have rolled out the Soofa Sign: a standalone structure housing a digital screen that helps to simultaneously empower community members, organizations, and government to engage with pedestrians while providing location-specific wayfinding information.
Both devices also have the added benefit of providing valuable context-based data to city governments, developers, and even theme parks - helping to track pedestrian activity around the devices. Similar to the data generated by Superpedestrian’s vehicles, these signs help to provide valuable information that can guide and inform the decisions of Urban Planning and Design professionals, ideally creating projects that generate the greatest amount of social and economic impact. Knowing how people use and occupy space can be one of the hardest data points to quantify accurately, as it is somewhat nuanced and prone to self-reporting bias - relying on interviews and surveys only goes so far, as people (in my experience) tend to focus on the pain points of their experiences, and overlook things that already work well.
Conclusion
So, in the face of worsening traffic, frustratingly slow government adaptation, and unchangeable social behavior - all I can advise you to do is to give some alternative options a try. There’s a wealth of other factors at play in the micromobility movement, like solving the first/last mile problem, expanding access to businesses and, you know, saving the planet. By taking one for a spin, you can help to gather the data necessary to inform future decisions that can make e-scooters and other micro-mobile options more viable alternatives to getting around your city.
Not convinced? I'd like to yield the remainder of my time to the foremost e-scooter advocates in the country: