New York City Department of Transportation announces micromobility pilot in East Bronx to expand to long-term program
The New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) Commissioner has requested proposals to expand micromobility, with the capacity to make a pilot that began last year in the East Bronx permanent. The agency also released a report highlighting the success of that pilot, which has logged more than 1.4 million rides with no fatalities and few serious injuries since it launched in August 2021.
“We are announcing today the shared e-scooter pilot I supported as a Councilmember will aim to become a long-term program, pending the results of NYC DOT’s RFP,” said Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. “On the streets of the East Bronx, this pilot met and exceeded its ambitious goals around safety, mobility and equity, and now we are ready to do even more for more communities.”
DOT launched the highly successful East Bronx Shared E-Scooter Pilot in several neighborhoods in the East Bronx in August 2021 and, in concert with a second phase added ten months later, eventually covered communities from Wakefield and Pelham Parkway to Soundview with participation from three companies. During the pilot, those three companies, Bird, Lime and Veo, provided 6,000 shared e-scooters. The current pilot program will continue at least through the summer of 2023, with RFP demonstrating the intent to continue offering shared micromobility after 2023 for more New York City residents and communities.
The one-year evaluation of the pilot demonstrated that the program provided functional and accessible mobility options to a historically underserved communities, easing dependence on motor vehicles by offering an environmentally-friendly mobility option. The pilot, initiated by Local Law 74 of 2020, was designed to test viability of e-scooters specifically in neighborhoods not served by Citi Bike.
NYC DOT launched the pilot with four goals:
- Create strong safety requirements
- Assess the transportation utility of shared e-scooters
- Minimize sidewalk clutter to maintain the public right of way
- Evaluate the participating companies’ viability and ability to comply with the pilot requirements
In June 2022, after seeing early success in the first ten months of the program, NYC DOT expanded the pilot further south in the East Bronx, doubling the number of e-scooters and adding nine new neighborhoods to the pilot area. Overall, the combined pilot area covered nearly 600,000 New Yorkers, more than 80 percent of whom were non-White and included 25 NYCHA developments.
NYC DOT required strict safety standards, including mandatory age verification and a “beginner mode” for new riders – who were required to take a safety quiz, travel at slower speeds and could not take initial rides overnight. The pilot’s conditions also required operators to share system data to enable NYC DOT to monitor whether the e-scooter operators were complying with the terms of the pilot program, as well as to identify operational challenges. In certain areas of the pilot area, NYC DOT mandated all e-scooter rides to end at mandatory e-scooter parking corrals, about 130 in total. NYC DOT also built out the city’s bike lane network in the pilot service area, with many projects completed (including new protected lanes along Bronxdale Avenue), and others slated for completion in 2023.
As part of the pilot program, NYC DOT evaluated trip and other system data from August 17, 2021 to August 31, 2022, and user and non-user survey data collected between September 2021 and May 2022. The findings in NYC DOT’s evaluation illustrated broad success of the pilot in relation to its major goals of safety, mobility, operations, parking, equity and community participation.
