They may be fun to ride, but electric scooters have popped up in cities around the world recently on streets that weren’t quite designed for them. And this has meant headaches for pedestrians and cars. Out of the blue last summer, the scooter sharing company Bird flooded the streets of Cambridge and Somerville with them — without telling local authorities. Officials responded by telling Bird where to go.
Since then, the two cities have joined others in the Bay State in a pilot program to test scooters this coming spring. At a recent Boston City Council hearing, South End resident Michael Messina spoke in favor of Boston allowing them.
“It would make my commute to the Back Bay a lot easier,” Messina said, adding, “I have a lot of friends who take a lot of Lyfts and Ubers. They’re like, ‘I don’t want to take the T to your house, I don’t want to go to your house because I’d have to walk like eight minutes.’ They’re lazier than I am. They would use these if available.”
But not everyone is so enthusiastic. Disability activists point out that not only are they unable to use this type of transportation, but just like dockless bikes, scooters left strewn on sidewalks are a huge problem for people using canes or wheelchairs.
Also, electric scooters are technically illegal in Massachusetts: The law covering them was originally written for mopeds, and requires turn signals and brake lights — which scooters don’t have. That means local officials can’t really run the pilot program until the Legislature changes the law.
For that, Massachusetts might look west. In Minneapolis, Robin Hutcheson is director of public works and relates experiences of that city’s recently completed pilot program for scooter sharing. Her assessment?
“Mostly really good. A little bit also bad,” Hutcheson said.
The good part, she said, was that roughly 40 percent of people who rented scooters during the test period said they used cars less frequently, helping cut down on traffic. The bad part?
“People were riding on sidewalks.”
That’s not just dangerous, it’s illegal, and something Hutcheson says the scooter companies will have to address. And not just scooters, by the way: Everything from electric unicycles to motorized skateboards are showing up on the roads.
Back in Massachusetts, Connor O’Leary works at Salem Cycle, where he displayed all sorts of low-powered transportation devices.
“This is the inboard electric skateboard. It was featured on 'Shark Tank,'” he described one device, which looks like — well, an ordinary skateboard. Its motor is so small it’s virtually unnoticeable.
“The only way you can tell it’s an electric skateboard is when you see somebody going uphill on it doing 15 [mph],” he said. “Then you can go to expert mode, which has a top speed of 20 mph.”
He also showed off electric bikes and Segways, all of which Massachusetts law struggles to keep up with. If you own one, the police probably won’t hassle you too much, so long as you keep off major highways and — once again — the sidewalks. The bigger issue is making rules for all those scooter sharing companies.
Boston Transportation Commissioner Gina Fiandaca said a speed limit would be crucial to allowing them on the streets.
“The speed limit for motor vehicles in the city of Boston is 25 mph. So any speed limit enacted as it relates to scooters would be far, far, far lower,” Fiandaca said.
Both Bird and Lime limit their scooters to under 15 mph. At that speed, plus the time it takes to rent the scooter and the cost, is it worth it? Ask someone who rides one.
“These are electric, they’re not cars,” said Scooter proponent Michael Messina. “They’ll take millions of car trips off the road, and we don’t have to pay for it. Companies will come in and just put them on the streets. It’s the easiest step we can take to fight climate change, and if we can’t do this, I’ll be pretty disheartened.”
