Why investment in both infrastructure and education are the key success factors for developing micromobility?
In the last 18 months, I have been lucky enough to live in three of the most vibrant cities in the world during an exceptionally challenging time for our society: Paris, London, and New-York. I witnessed these three cities evolve and transform to adapt to this new normal and to prepare themselves to tomorrow’s world. As a mobility enthusiast, this period has certainly been the most exciting I experienced as the changes have been numerous.
The three cities are at different stages of development regarding urban mobility, but I identified two critical factors that will build long-term success for developing a sustainable mobility strategy: infrastructure and education. Here is an overview of these three capitals to underline what I believe to be the drivers of progress.
Paris — Being my native city, I have a very good experience of how mobility evolved in Paris since the mid-2000s (sorry, before that I was too young to really notice!). Even if the Vélib programme arrived as early as 2007, I remember my early years as a driver, where driving downtown was almost a pleasure and parking a non-issue.
This all changed, for the better, with the arrival of Mayor Hidalgo in 2014 and her program to replace cars by light and sustainable modes of transportation. I would argue that from 2016, with the closure to cars of the river banks and heavy investments in bike lanes, Paris became the micromobility lab of Europe.
In 2016 also, a new model came from China in the form of hundreds of thousands of bikes deployed in the streets by companies like Ofo, Gobee Bike and Mobike. It was the start of free-floating but poor quality of the hardware and curb management issues made them disappear in less than two years. Then, in the summer of 2018, Lime chose Paris to be its first city outside of the U.S., bringing the hype of electric scooters to Europe. Six months later, twelve operators were battling, mainly for tourists, with more than 20,000 scooters cluttering the curbs. These two poor experiences of the free floating however proved the potential of micromobility in Paris and brought the city leaders to a whole new strategy that the pandemic only accelerated.
In late 2019, the first tender process for scooter operators was launched and finally awarded TIER, Lime and Dott to operate 5,000 scooters each. Simultaneously, the Véligo initiative was launched to encourage people to switch to micromobility by offering the opportunity to rent a premium ebike for six months at 40€ per month. Success is huge with today a waiting list of several months and the recent announcement of an enlarged choice of bikes: cargo bikes, three wheelers, … After these six months, most users buy their own ebike, enjoying the 500€ public subvention and accelerating the transition to micromobility for commuting.
With the pandemic, 2020 has also been the year of cycle lanes in Paris. 650 kilometers of corona cycleways are now permanent and newly re-elected Hidalgo promised 1000 kilometers more by 2024 Olympics Games. In my opinion, the current network is great for commuting across the city but does not allow thriving neighborhood communities. Small streets space is still mainly occupied by cars and parking areas for micromobility is not sufficient.
I guess 2021 will be the year of experimenting with new parking and charging solutions. Paris just announced a pilot of 150 universal docking stations of the Estonian startup DUCKT, after testing the Charge solution since the summer of 2020. Local start-ups are also bringing innovative approaches like the one of Sharelock which transform streets poles into connected bike locks.
London — I took the Eurostar from Paris in the summer of 2019, to start my MBA at London Business School and with the firm ambition to immerse myself in the local mobility ecosystem. The least to say is that, before the pandemic, London was not a welcoming city for micromobility. Electric scooters were simply forbidden and the network of protected bike lanes very limited. Most of the time, the road had to be shared with cabs and buses while trying to avoid numerous potholes. Considering myself an experienced bike rider, it took me some weeks to feel comfortable commuting to school. The positive side is that most of the cyclists in the streets of London are careful and respectful of the traffic laws, a point where Parisian cyclists need a serious improvement.
If the pandemic accelerated Paris’ strategy, it transformed London’s one. First, scooters were finally authorized during the summer of 2020. I also detailed in my previous article, Why London can become the biggest micromobility market?, the £2 billion cycling plan launched by Boris Johnson and the TfL’s project to launch a city-wide pilot tender with scooter operators in Spring 2021. If the timing has been respected and the three selected operators just announced, TIER, Lime and Dott like in Paris, only a third of the 33 boroughs of London will take part in this experiment.
Contrary to Paris where the city council is committed for years to shape the streets for micromobility, London’s administration is lagging. I really hope 2021 will be the year of investments in the necessary infrastructures because London enjoys a large network of mobility start-ups that already identified the key challenges of sustainable micromobility and are ready to welcome thousands of new riders. I am for instance thinking of Spokesafe solution to provide safe bike parking to employees or the innovative insurance model of Laka.
New-York — I arrived in the Big Apple only two months ago, so I could only observe the outcome of the transformation operated by the city during the pandemic. I have been very positively surprised. The quality and quantity of cycle lanes is quite impressive in Manhattan and most of them on major avenues are separated from the road by a line of parking spaces. And I have been astonished to see vehicles cleaning and deicing the bike lanes only hours after a snowstorm.
Then, I took a CitiBike and understood the next challenge of New York City: education. Education of riders, education of pedestrians and education of drivers. Micromobility is a whole new world for NYC inhabitants that were used to only two kinds of population in their streets: cars and pedestrians. Cars used to occupy most of the space and to have the priority in almost all cases over pedestrians. Pedestrians then learnt to live the city only on the curbs and to be careful with cars.
When bikes appeared, it transformed this binary world. Bikes most of the time share the road with drivers that generally have no clue, simply because they have not been taught, on how to behave in presence of riders. For instance, letting a gap between your car and the bike you are overpassing does not exist here.
For pedestrians, it seems they still think the space taken from cars to build the bike lanes is for them and do not realize how dangerous it can be to cross a lane without a look for cyclists.
Finally, there is an urgent need to educate NYC riders. This last population can be split in two. On one side, there are the delivery workers using primarily 25mph artisanal ebike (usually pedaling is not even necessary so it is maybe closer to a moped) and that are simply taking all the risks to maximize their gig revenues. One the other side, you have new cyclists using CitiBike for the first or second time (the number of rides doubles in 2020 compared to 2019) and that would need to be taught the basic rules of riding a bike in an urban environment.
Like for Paris, I believe offering nice parking solutions to encourage commuters to switch from car to bike should be one of the next goals for NYC. Today there are simply no designated parking spots and street pots and other signages are the only places where a lock can be attached. Start-ups like Oonee are already stepping in to solve the issue but they need support from local authorities.
I would love to see 2021 becoming the year where Mayor De Blasio really steps in to implement education programs and campaigns that will teach the basics of living in a city where drivers, cyclists and pedestrians cohabitate safely.
To sum up my experience of mobility enthusiast in these three major capitals, I would select four critical aspects I believe essential for a sustainable development of micromobility:
● Building a protected network of bike lanes that eases commuting across the city but also encourages the development of neighborhood activities and local consumption. Start-ups like Populus in the US and Vianova in Europe proved to be of help for administrations on this topic.
● Developing parking solutions through collaboration and investment in start-ups offering innovative solutions. I really believe in public-private projects in this domain.
● Creating sponsored programs and public aids to encourage people to try switching from car to micromobility and giving them the financial support to then invest in their own equipment.
● Launching education and communication campaigns to raise awareness about how to share the streets in a multimodal mobility world, from kindergartens to driving schools.
