You say you want a revolution? Well, you need to start doing what you can.
Oonee the secure bike parking company that the de Blasio administration can’t figure out what to do with will install two new compact, ad-free curbside pods somewhere in the city, based on suggestions from the public. (Vote here.)
The units, which hold about six or seven bikes, plus a pump for public use, were funded by Voi, the scooter company. Oonee has previously sited larger pods in pilot programs near the Barclays Center, the Staten Island Ferry terminal in Manhattan and in Journal Square in Jersey City, but company founder Shabazz Stuart believes the smaller units could be rapidly deployed everywhere, once the city gives the green light and investors see that the concept works.
“Micromobility” is catching on with American urbanites. A report released by the North American Bike Share Association (NABSA) last month found that shared bikes and scooters provided 157 million trips on 194,000 vehicles in 2019, figures that should rise significantly when NABSA gets around to assessing the state of the industry in 2020 sometime next summer. Add to that the as-yet-unmeasured number of trips taken on privately owned micromobility vehicles and the impact on cities becomes becomes even greater. Bikes, e-bikes, scooters and e-scooters offer a low-carbon, high-efficiency, healthier-for-the-user alternative to travel by car, and in dense urban environments, they have the added advantage of taking up very little space on the streets. But the question of where to put them when they’re not in use is also becoming more important. Transportation advocates are warning that without more parking for bikes and scooters, the growth of micromobility could stall, and in New Yo