The Golden Age of Shared Micromobility
Looking back fondly at a time where shared bikes and scooters were everywhere
I've been thinking more and more about micromobility lately. It's still a buzzy word that people have trouble defining. But it's basically the idea of using smaller, more sustainable (likely electric) vehicles to get around. It's less about the exact vehicles and more about the mindset.
It's the idea of choosing the vehicle that best matches your use case without being too much. Why drive yourself around in a minivan when you don't need those extra seats? The best vehicle is the one that will serve its purpose with the lightest weight and impact on the environment.
And while this has been a more popular concept in the past handful of years, I've been looking back fondly at a time when micromobility seemed to be ahead of its time. I'm talking about ten or so years ago, in San Francisco. It may have just been the Golden Age of Shared Micromobility.
What Makes SF Unique?
Now, when I say "shared" micromobility, I mean vehicles that can easily be rented for defined periods of time rather than something you'd buy outright and only use when you needed it. There was a time in San Francisco where it was just so easy to get around on a variety of vehicles.
For those who haven't been, San Francisco is a very densely populated place. The entire city is roughly 7 miles long and 7 miles wide. There are very clear water boundaries on three sides of the city. It's a peninsula that separates the Pacific Ocean from (the aptly named) San Francisco Bay. And it's notably filled with spectacular hills.
There are several things that make SF a unique city for various forms of transportation. Many areas are easily walkable. The public transportation is reasonably good by American standards with subways, light rail, street cars, and buses. The temperate climate makes cycling ideal as long as you can avoid the steep hills. And while it is densely populated, it doesn't reach the unlivable crunch of overpopulation seen in other large cities. You can still get around without feeling like you're overcrowded. And it's one of the few places in the United States where it's still pretty easy to live without your own personal automobile.
Transportation Options
In the early 2010s, I was primarily getting around the city by foot or by bus. I always made sure I lived somewhere with as short of a commute as possible. For several years, I lived a block away from the ad agency I worked at. It was almost too close for comfort, but I rarely had to think about transportation. When I left that job, I made sure my commute was under 15-minutes by bike and managed to keep that up for many years.
Having my own bike was great, but dealing with maintenance was a hassle. And like most major cities, bike theft runs rampant in SF. I once had the (stock and unremarkable) seat stolen off my bike while it was parked in front of a high-end hotel while getting lunch with a friend who was in town. Several more bikes were stolen out of various home garages over the years. It can be so discouraging to keep your bike from being stolen.
So you can imagine how excited I was when shared mobility platforms started popping up around the city. Yes, Zipcar had been around for a while and I always had a membership for the several times per year where I needed a car for a specific task or road trip. But now there were other smaller vehicles becoming available to affordably rent.
Scoot was one such option. They launched with the ability to rent extremely practical electric mopeds for quick jaunts around town. The higher speeds made my old bike look like a relic. They could be parked almost anywhere and included a helmet to keep you safe. They even had modest cargo capacity to take that bag of groceries home.
The Ford Go Bike program also came around in this era. It followed a similar structure as the popular City Bike Share program in New York. It became extremely easy to just unlock a bike for a short ride across town. Yearly memberships were easy to obtain and were even offered as a transit perk through work. I was happily leaving my personal bike at home and using these shared bikes instead with no worry about them getting stolen. When they added electric bikes to the fleet and allowed for one-touch access via Clipper Transit Card or mobile app, I felt like I was achieving shared mobility nirvana.
Then of course there was the blitz of scooters. These are the ones that made all the headlines. San Francisco became a laughing stock when scooters from companies like Bird and Lime were seen discarded all over sidewalks and wherever else was convenient. I was loving the convenience and affordability of scooters being available in every neighborhood whenever you needed them. Even when moving across the bay to Oakland, I regularly used a Lime scooter for my daily work commute. It was fun, good for the planet, and easy on my wallet. But it was also the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of Shared Micromobility.
The End of an Era
The local governments started to crack down. The number of available bikes and scooters dwindled. The companies couldn't keep up with the wear and tear on the vehicles. I started to hop on scooters that claimed to be fully charged but would die out and leave me stranded and late. And the companies also realized how hard it was to turn a profit. Brands merged, got acquired, changed names, or just disappeared overnight. Even as someone who was an early adopter and very interested in the space, I lost track of which options were still available on my daily commute.
Then we had a pandemic and people stopped commuting. That was essentially the death blow to this idyllic world where you could easily travel around on shared bikes and scooters in the Bay Area. The old Ford Go Bike program still lives on as Bay Wheels and is owned my Lyft. But the affordability isn't really there anymore. Renting a bike or ebike is now too close to the cost of taking a Lyft/Uber/Taxi. Pricing is confusing and there are too many hidden fees.
Hope for the future
I've been intentionally vague with the exact dates in this little nostalgic look back at my shared transit history. I'd just say that the timeframe between 2010-2020 seems to be a very solid decade that gave us a potentially too early glimpse into the future of transit. We're still innovating and I'm always bullish to try any new subscription transit service even if it isn't perfect.
Just this week, former CEO of the aforementioned moped-sharing pioneer Scoot announced his new venture called Tempo. It will allow consumers to pay a monthly subscription to essentially lease their own micromobility vehicles in a more affordable manner. Right now they are only offering a great looking electric scooter from Äike, but I'm optimistic to see what other brands they can offer in the future.
So what's the point of all this? Well, it's always nice to reflect fondly on "The Good Ol' Days" but it's also just an illustration that progress like this isn't always linear. We had affordable shared electric scooters for a while but that doesn't mean that we'll have even more affordable and more powerful electric scooters tomorrow. Sometimes we take two steps forward and two steps back. This isn't unique to San Francisco or America in general. I'm a big believer in the future of micromobility but I know it won't always be smooth sailing…
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
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