Flutterby™! : Scooters & Portland

Joe Cortright on Bike Portland: Opinion: Portland’s scooter success exposes stark double standard

Data shows Portland’s scooter experiment worked. Maybe it’s time to critically appraise the failed, 110-year experiment with cars.

Same article, different source: Joe Cortright on City Observatory: Scooter Lessons: Success, but a stark double standard

In four months, scooters went from nothing, to providing more an average of 5,800 trips per day. About 30 percent of city residents rode the scooters at least once during the trial period. The city estimates that roughly a third of scooter trips substituted for private car trips, helping to reduce traffic congestion. Scooters also tended to be used most during peak travel hours, with 20 percent of all trips taking place between 3pm and 6pm on weekdays. City surveys indicate that six percent of scooter users reported getting rid of a private car as a result of scooter availability. In addition, the city’s survey’s also suggest that scooters effectively expanded the market for non-automobile transportation by attracting users who haven’t ridden bicycles for transportation. The survey also shows that 60 percent of Portlanders have a positive or somewhat positive view of scooters. As transportation innovations go, this seems like a pretty wild success.

Wiliamette Week: Portland Economist Says City’s E-Scooter Experiment Was a Success—and Wants to Apply the Same Standards to Cars:

“If we applied even a fraction of the scrutiny to cars that PBOT has applied to scooters,” Joe Cortright says, “we’d be looking to have radical change.”