INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Lime launched its scooters in the Spanish capital this summer.Spending a weekend in the city center last month the craze was impossible to
Scooters parked in clusters vying for pay-to-play time
Sometimes lined up tidily
the international expansion bandwagon as they gun for growth.Grandly proportioned El Retiro clearly makes a great spot for taking a scooter
Test rides beget joyrides, and so the kids were hopping on
Sometimes two to one.The boulevard linking the Prado with the Reina Sofia was another popular route to scoot.While a busy central bar
district was a hot ride-ditching spot later on
Lines of scooters were vying for space with the vintage street bollards.The appeal was obvious: Bowl up to the bar and drink! No worries
about parking or how to get your ride home afterwards
But for Saturday night revellers there was suddenly a new piece of street furniture to lurch around, with slouching handlebars sticking up
carved out a growing niche for themselves with a certain type of Barcelona native.Again, you can see the logic: Well-dressed professionals
of wheeled e-rides in play for locals with the guts to get on them
Some with seats and/or handles, others with almost nothing
At least for now, having only had a couple of months to bed in.Whereas the organic growth of scooters in Barcelona barrios is about people
who live there feeling a need.Even the unicycling hipsters seem to be actually on their way somewhere.Hop onWhat does this mean for scooter
about impacts where scooters and micro-mobility is concerned because all this stuff must piggyback on shared public spaces
seems to be generating pretty superficial and additive use
Offering a novel alternative to walking between sights or bars on a trip to-do list
shops rent all sorts of wheels to tourists by the hour
genuine transformative potential in dense urban environments
But the additive nature of micro-mobility underlines a pressing need for the technology to be properly steered if cities, residents and
societies are to get the best benefits.Scooters could certainly replace some moped trips
Even some local car journeys
So they could play an important role in reducing pollution and noise by taking trips away from petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles.Because
they offer a convenient, low-barrier-to-entry alternative with populist pull.Not being too high speed also means, in and of themselves,
Novelty is not the only lure.Hop offThough, equally, the local-level journeys that scooters are best suited for could just as easily be
very major gains up for grabs.Subsidized scooters coupled with a framework of congestion zones that levy fees on petrol/diesel engines is
all large cities in the world
So reshaping city centers to be more people-centric and less toxic to human health by displacing cars would be an incredible win for
Yet another nuisance on already choked streets
An optional extra that feels disposable and gets rudely discarded because no one feels invested.In this scenario the technology is not
thatAn obsession with growth at all costs may well be a side effect of major VC dollars flooding in
in ways that bring whole communities along with them
But getting residents and communities engaged with the direction of travel
Partnering with people and policymakers on the right incentives to steer innovation onto its best track.Move people around cities, yes, and
But there are reasons to be cheerful about this new crop of mobility startups too.Signs they see value and opportunities in being
Having also learnt some hard early lessons about the need to be very sensitive to shared spaces.Bird announced a program this summer
offering discounted rides to people on low incomes, for example
Lime has a similar program.These are small but interesting steps
