This week, we’re joined by vehicle designer Dan Sturges to talk about his book, Near to Far: A Design for a New and Equitable Transportation System. We talk about new ways of thinking about vehicle design, mobility for low-density areas, as well as pop culture perceptions of small vehicles. It’s a big deal. Many people prefer to read than hear, so if you want full transcript, click here. A shorter excerpt is below the player: Here’s the edited section: Jeff Wood: I want to talk a little bit about smaller vehicles. You’ve worked with Segway, but I think the frustrating thing is you can des ..read more

One of America’s iconic micromobility companies has filed for Chapter 11 — but some advocates say that could signal a more stable chapter for the industry on the whole, rather than its death knell. Just before Christmas, Bird Global announced that it had entered bankruptcy, paving the way for the outfit to restructure its financial operations while still, theoretically, keeping its fleets of bikes and scooters running in more than 350 cities around the world.  Bird going from $2B+ valuation to being delisted off of the NYSE and going bankrupt all within 5 years is somethi ..read more

From one standpoint, U.S. micromobility is having a major moment.  NACTO’s recently published annual micromobility report showed that docked bikeshare just had its best year in history, roaring back from pandemic-era lows and eclipsing last year’s record-setting trip numbers with reported 71.5 million journeys across U.S. and Canada in 2022. Dockless bike and scooter-share, meanwhile, is being praised for finally “growing up” from its “Wild West” days of dumping fleets onto city streets overnight and into mature partnerships with municipalities, which increasingly view their product ..read more

E-bikes can be a critical mobility aid for seniors or people with disabilities — but the first step is getting those populations to abandon their preconceptions that the mode just isn’t built for them, a new report suggests. A study published this month in Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives highlighted the potential of pedal-assist vehicles to get people with mobility challenges moving, but also stressed that we first have to “understand how these populations perceive e-bikes and identify the concerns and barriers they face.” To do that, the researchers at Texas A& ..read more

Low-income people are using shared micromobility a lot like they use public transit, a new study finds — and researchers think cities should thoroughly embrace (and subsidize) the mode as part of the larger ecosystem of buses and trains. Researchers at Monash University, using survey data from micromobility giant Lime users across all income levels in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, dug deeper into how low-income people uniquely use the company’s vehicles. Participants in the Lime Access program, which grants discounts of around “70 or 80 percent” to riders who qualify, were s ..read more

They’re trying to light a fire under the apps. The City Council on Thursday rubber-stamped a bill to create a citywide “buy back” program that would allow delivery workers to exchange faulty or second-hand lithium-ion batteries for safe, certified ones — and a trio of pols also introduced a slate of other reforms to do even more to rein in the rogue industry after a spate of deadly fires. “We know there are folks who can’t afford high-priced batteries and bikes, and we will provide them the opportunity to surrender that unsafe equipment and receive a safe replacement,” Council Member Keith Pow ..read more

America’s national electric vehicle charging effort is leaving out the types of EVs with the most potential to curb catastrophic climate change: the shared electric bicycles and scooters that are ideal for short trips in our cities and towns, advocates say.  According to a new report from the North American Bikeshare and Scootershare Association, the federal government currently dedicates zero dollars to on-street docking stations for e-bikes and other micromobility options — or, more accurately, human-scaled modes — compared to a staggering $7.5 billion for shared and  ..read more

Editor’s note: this article originally appeared on the Anadue blog and is republished with permission. Shared micromobility often gets a bad reputation. Some people think it’s a fad, or a toy for the young and wealthy. While it’s true that in many cities, a lot of users are tourists, affluent commuters and students, it doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s look at shared micromobility with a fresh pair of eyes, as if it was a brand new concept, untested in any city. What are its main characteristics? Zero upfront investment to travel (a big advantage over all privately owned vehicles) No long ..read more

This week, we’re joined by Hussein Mahfouz of Transport for Cairo and Adham Kalila of Streetlight Data to talk about their new report created for NUMO, “All Possible Commutes: How Micromobility and Realistic Car Travel Times Impact Accessibility Analysis.” We learn about measuring car travel more accurately, how micromobility can improve accessibility, and a bit about transportation in the Cairo metro region. Listen below. A full, unedited transcript of our conversation can be found here. Scroll down on this page for an excerpt. Get going! Jeff Wood: You report takes a new and different a ..read more

A wave of American cities are reversing their controversial decisions to limit the use of shared scooters and bikes — and reframing the conversation about the problems that precipitated the restrictions in the first place.  In the final days of May, transportation officials in Dallas announced that they would allow three micromobility providers to resume operations for the first time since September 2020, when the Texas metropolis made the controversial move to shut down its entire scooter- and bike-share program citing vague “public safety concerns.” As the specific nature ..read more