Abstract
Since 2018, pedestrians in many U.S. cities have been sharing sidewalk space with dockless shared e-scooters. The introduction of e-scooters has received pushback from pedestrians. Complaints reported in the media include e-scooters blocking walkways and sidewalks when parked illegally as well as safety concerns from pedestrians who do not feel safe around moving e-scooters. However, little is known beyond a few initial studies on e-scooter parking and anecdotes about pedestrian perceptions of e-scooter safety. Our case study from Rosslyn, Virginia, helps shed light on these two issues. First, we conducted a survey of 181 e-scooter riders and non-riders asking about their perceived safety around riders of e-scooters and experiences of sidewalks blocked by e-scooters. We found highly divergent responses about safety and sidewalk blocking perceptions from riders and non-riders. Second, we conducted an observational study of 606 parked e-scooters along three mixed-use corridors in Rosslyn to investigate the relationship between the built environment and e-scooter parking. We found that 16% of 606 observed e-scooters were not parked properly and 6% (36 e-scooters) were blocking pedestrian right-of-way. Moreover, our survey showed that e-scooter trips in Rosslyn replaced trips otherwise taken by Uber, Lyft, or a taxi (39%), foot (33%), bicycle (12%), bus (7%), or car (7%).
Highlights
Since 2018, pedestrians in many U.S cities have been sharing sidewalk space with dockless shared e-scooters
Complaints reported in the media include e-scooters blocking walkways and sidewalks when parked illegally, as well as safety concerns from pedestrians who do not feel safe around moving e-scooters [3]
We found that 16% of 606 observed e-scooters were not parked properly, and 6% (36 e-scooters) were blocking the pedestrian right-of-way
Summary
Since 2018, pedestrians in many U.S cities have been sharing sidewalk space with dockless shared e-scooters. The debut of shared e-scooters follows the proliferation of shared electric and pedal bikes since 2017 in many U.S cities. Americans took 38.5 million e-scooter rides in 2018, exceeding the number of rides taken using station-based bike-sharing systems, and far outstripping the number of rides on shared dockless bikes [1,2]. E-scooters can be parked anywhere within a given service area. E-scooters can be part of the car-free mobility mix along with bicycles, public transport, and walking [3]. Complaints reported in the media include e-scooters blocking walkways and sidewalks when parked illegally, as well as safety concerns from pedestrians who do not feel safe around moving e-scooters [3]. Little is known beyond anecdotes about perceptions of e-scooters and a few studies on e-scooter parking
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