Bird e-scooters by Mack Male licensed under Creative Commons.

In the past several years, electric scooters have popped up around the region, and cities all over the world, providing a quick and cheap mode of transportation. For those not paying attention to e-scooter legislation and pilot programs, their arrival may have seemed somewhat abrupt. Suddenly, these bright-colored scooters were parked all over the sidewalks, and people were speeding down the street and leaving them behind whenever they arrived at their destination. While these scooters may have seemed like a temporary fad at first, policy in some places, like Montgomery County, shows these e-scooters may be here to stay.

Micromobility is finding its way into long term policy and transportation plans across the country with its myriad of benefits including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, getting cars off the roads, and providing an affordable and quick mode of transportation. It doesn’t come without its drawbacks, though, such as accidents and injury, creating obstacles on sidewalks when parked incorrectly, and being inaccessible to people with certain disabilities.

Nonetheless, e-scooter use is expanding beyond city streets, moving into the suburbs, and in the case of Montgomery County, even public parks, becoming a new facet of our transportation landscape. So how did we get here, and what does the future hold for scooters in Montgomery?

Montgomery County - the early micromobility adapters

Montgomery County is just one of the many jurisdictions in the US and worldwide to embrace e-scooters. Micromobility transit use has skyrocketed across the country in recent years. Between 2018 and 2019, ridership increased by 60%, in the US, and 136 million rides were taken through micromobility options in 2019.

Micromobility transit all started with bikesharing programs. Bikesharing has been ingrained in DC culture since 2008, when DC became the first city in North America to launch a bikeshare program. Dockless electric bicycles emerged in later years, and in 2017, DC adopted dockless e-scooters into their micromobility transportation options. Surrounding jurisdictions in Virginia and Maryland followed DC’s lead, with Montgomery County leading the way.

Montgomery County embraced dockless, micromobility transit early on, as they were the first suburban jurisdiction in the country to pilot dockless bikeshare. After success with that pilot program in Silver Spring, Takoma Park, and North Bethesda, Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) began testing out dockless e-scooters in Spring 2019. The program was immediately popular, with more than 84,000 total rides in the summer (June-August) of 2019.

How micromobility intersects with climate change

Montgomery County’s increasing commitment to electric micromobility reflects the interests and engagement of the community, but it also falls into the county’s larger plans to address climate change. In January 2021, Montgomery County officials released a draft of the county’s climate action goals, outlining the plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2027 and by 100% by 2035. Transportation plays a critical role in achieving these climate goals in many facets, including expanding the micromobility network.

E-scooters are not completely environmentally friendly, as their manufacturing, distribution, and use produce greenhouse gas emissions. But e-scooters still benefit the environment by being an emission reducing option when providing a mode of transportation other than cars.

E-scooters pivot to public parks

We may be used to seeing these electric vehicles on our urban streets, but Montgomery County (and Prince George’s County) have also implemented e-bike and e-scooter use in public parks. Initially introduced as a pilot program and then officially implemented in March 2021, e-bikes and e-scooters can be used on hard surface trails in county owned M-NCPPC parks.

Montgomery Parks implemented this change to reflect the increasing popularity of e-bikes and e-scooters as a form of formal transportation and recreation. This policy doesn’t just apply to rentable electric vehicles, it also allows personal electric bikes and scooters, but check with the Parks program’s guidelines before taking your electric bike or scooter out to your local M-NCPPC trail to make sure your vehicle fits the requirements.

What’s next - monthly subscriptions

E-scooter companies that have vehicles in Montgomery County, like Lyft, Bird, Lime, and Spin all have similar ridership models. Riders open up the app for whatever scooter service they want to use, locate an available nearby scooter, scan the barcode on the scooter, pay, and ride. An emerging e-scooter company, Unagi, recently expanded into the Washington region, including parts of Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, and Northern Virginia. Unagi differs from its competitors because it runs on a monthly subscription model. Unagi riders pay between $39-$49/month for an “All-Access Subscription,” which provides them with a personal e-scooter, delivered to their door.

According to David Hyman, CEO and Founder of Unagi, the subscription model “solves many of the problems folks experience with shared services” such as Lyft, Bird, Lime, and Spin. Riders don’t have to worry about the unavailability of shared scooters, because their personal scooter is always available. Hyman states: “The immense and sustained consumer demand we’ve seen for our scooters since the pandemic started includes city residents and those who access offices or errands from surrounding suburbs - and vice versa. Unagi is unique in that it gets riders from their homes to the Metro, can easily go on the Metro or in an Uber, and then sit by their desk, in class, or be carried along on in a store.”

Urban and suburban scooter riders in the region have expanding options for how to participate in e-scooter culture, whether renting a scooter for the long term and keeping it as their own personal vehicle, or hopping on an available scooter parked down the street and leaving it behind when they arrive at their destination. E-scooters seem to have a lasting role in urban and suburban transportation infrastructure with their role in larger transportation and climate plans, and developing ridership models.

Abby Wester is originally from Prince George’s County, Maryland, and is a rising senior at Mount Holyoke College studying political science, geography, and journalism. She is interested in how sustainability and equity play into urbanist issues such as transportation and housing.