Electric scooters to return this summer after 4-month test that provided 821,615 trips

Electric scooters will return to Chicago this summer for a second test run after a four-month pilot that provided 821,615 trips but raised safety, parking and equity concerns.

Newly-appointed Transportation Commissioner Gia Biagi said Chicago’s love-hate relationship with electric scooters needs further study in a different geographic area to work out kinks that include sidewalk clutter, 192 injuries reported by Chicago hospitals and 39 citations issued to nine participating companies.

“One of the things that a second pilot gives us the opportunity to do is really push the industry to follow the rules of the road in the way we’d like to see it … in terms of enforcement [and] being really attuned to clearing the public way,” Biagi said.

“There’s larger wheels that can better navigate and get through on our roads. Other technologies that can make it safe. This second pilot is a chance to really push on what we learned to help push the industry to be safer.”

Could mandatory helmets could be part of the mix?

“It’s a great idea. We’re going to look at all options like that,” Biagi said.

Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Commissioner Rosa Escareno noted that none of the 10 participating companies consistently met a requirement to “re-balance” scooters properly each morning into two “priority areas” designated by the city.

“The mayor is pushing both of us. Equity is central to the next pilot,” Escareno said.

Asked whether downtown could be included in Round Two, Escareno said, “Nothing is being ruled out at this time….The court is still out on that. But there are focused areas where the city would like to go going forward.”

From June 15 through Oct. 15, 10 companies were each granted 250 scooters to operate within a 50-square mile test area bounded by Halsted Street and the Chicago River on the east, Irving Park Road on the north, Harlem Avenue and the city limits on the west and the Chicago River on the south.

During that time, people who live, work and play in Chicago took 821,615 trips, according to a report jointly prepared by the city and the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

After discarding test rides or “laps” that started and ended in the same place, the report closely analyzed 407,296 trips and found:

—Electric scooters were used most frequently during the evening rush period on weekdays and between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. on weekends.

—77 percent of rides started or ended in the eastern half of the pilot area, where plenty of other transportation options exist.

—Although scooter ridership was concentrated in the West Loop and along the Blue Line, it’s not at all clear that scooters were used to reduce car trips or “supplement” mass transit. In fact, “very low percentages of survey respondents said they rode CTA buses and trains more often because of scooters. And 34 percent said they used scooters to get to and from public transit.

“We’re looking for alternate modes of movement between all of these public-related systems,” Biagi said.

“It tells us that we need to do a second pilot to really understand it, and that, when we’re testing areas, we need to think about where we have communities that are transportation rich and communities that don’t have as many transportation resources and make sure we’re testing areas that are looking at both.”

—The last week of the four-month pilot drew half as many rides as the first week.

—84 percent of riders favored another scooter test, but only 21 percent of non-riders want scooters to return. Overall, 59 percent of those surveyed want scooters to continue.

Kyle Whitehead, a spokesman for the Active Transportation Alliance, urged the city to adopt the more rigid rules recommended by his group shortly after the four-month pilot ended.

Those changes include: requiring scooters to be parked in docks, corrals or locked public racks to reduce sidewalk clutter; offering discounts to low-income riders; expanding priority zones; making all trips pay-as-you-go; and incentivizing trips to and from mass transit.

Whitehead also wants the city to keep scooters out of downtown and away from the lakefront trail and 606 and devote a chunk of scooter revenue toward improving the “walking and biking infrastructure” in “high-crash corridors” on the South and West Sides.

“The pilot demonstrated that there definitely is interest and excitement and enthusiasm for this option, including in areas that lack access to the train and the bus,” Whitehead said Tuesday.

“There is long-term potential around a regulated program for Chicago.”