"Transportation over short distances provided by lightweight, usually single person vehicles (such as bicycles and scooters) The arrival of electric scooters and motor assisted bicycles., backbones of a transportation mode known as micromobility, has been greeted as part of the solution to clogged roadways and unbearable travel delays."

- Norman Mayersohnlf

More and more cities have changed the infrastructure and added cycling lanes. According to Pieter Litjens (CROW) this will increase the use of micromobility."Show pedestrians and cyclists that you care by giving them a real position in the infrastructure.’ During the Dutch Cycling Embassy Think Bike workshop in Paris in 2019 one of the focuses was intersection design. Director Lucas Harms: "Paris is implementing 600km of bike lanes thanks to Mayor Hidalgo's grand vision, but they need expertise as the design of intersections is often the weak link."

Micro-mobility can help the city reduce congestion

The big takeaways are that micro-mobility could decrease congestion, especially on highly congested corridors. But you’re going to need wide-scale bike lane deployment,” said Corey Harper, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the authors of the study.

Perhaps most beneficial of all is that this approach is low cost. There are no significant infrastructure investments. Streets will not need to be closed to make this conversion. Enabling micro-mobility takes the space that cities already have, removes the giant stationary objects, and makes more room for people in motion.

Micro-mobility solutions can help fill in the gaps between public transportation for millions of commuters. In fact, they can even help make mass transit more attractive, so more people will choose it over driving their cars. In turn, this can reduce traffic congestion, parking issues, and other urban problems. The idea is still maturing, so cities have suffered some growing pains because of concerns over safety and in some cases, etiquette. Other cities may learn some lessons from the first pioneers of micro-mobility to get city officials to coordinate with micro-mobility companies and the public earlier in the planning phase.

However, the benefits of micro-mobility remain the same. The only difference then and now is its impact on cities and people. As populations increase in cities and fuel prices sore, micro-mobility becomes the solution to increasing road congestion challenges and environmental problems. After all, they have proven to be eco-friendly, efficient, and low-cost to operate.

Overall, these surveys present how micro-mobility offers individuals access to opportunities and how cities can tap on their workforce better. Help increase economic activity If more people can get around the city efficiently, it would also impact a city’s overall economic activity. Since a good number of commuters prefer using micro-mobility devices to travel, it can help boost sales for local shops.

Micro-mobility can help the city improve air quality

One major benefit of allowing micro-mobility devices in cities is their environmental impact. When roads clear up, there will be fewer vehicles that emit smoke, carbon, and other harmful gases. The biggest problem in road transportation today is the high amount of carbon emissions that road vehicles produce. In fact, road transportation contributes to 23% of carbon dioxide emissions globally.

Did you know that micro-mobility programs like Bird can help cities achieve all of these important goals and more? It’s true. Here’s a quick look at how these benefits are already being experienced in cities around the world, and how your city can be next.

Since micro-mobility devices don’t use engines and don’t consume fuel, these devices don’t release any harmful emissions. Ujet and Sustainability report that replacing 8% of road vehicles with electric vehicles can reduce emissions by 80% by 2050. That’s a significant positive impact on the environment, especially in the long run. If more cities encourage the use of personal or shared micro-mobility devices, it may be possible to reduce or completely remove air pollution sooner rather than later.

Zooming even further out, we see the need for a cradle to grave approach if we want to confidently say that micro-mobility is the answer to city air pollution. The integrity of the supply chain, the way that bikes and scooters are maintained and how they are disposed of must all factor into calculations. Simply displacing pollution from one city in the West to another city in China where the factory is located is not the answer.

If micro-mobility providers get it right and are able to operate safe, reliable services in partnership with local government, they could be a key player in helping cities tackle air quality problems so that we can say goodbye to headlines about illegal pollution. But we must look closely at how bikes and scooter shares are run to make them successful and not just take claims of environmentally friendliness at face value.

Conclusion...

Micro-mobility continues to evolve and gain in popularity, it will raise a host of questions for public officials. The demand for bike lanes could, for example, increase sharply …

These will help the city of Oxnard, CA expand and evolve to its bigger potential.