E-Scooters, as pictured in the Bronx above, will be available in eastern Queens in 2024. Image Credit: CityLaw.
On June 15, 2023, Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez announced that the city’s popular Bronx e-scooter share program will expand to eastern Queens in 2024. The decision to expand the e-scooter share program follows the program’s early success, which saw over two million trips taken by 115,470 users in the Bronx since the program launched in August 2021.
The e-scooters will be provided by Bird, Lime, and Veo, the same operators for the Bronx pilot program. The Queens program area will include Tier 1 and Tier 2 priority investment areas over roughly 20 square miles, and is expected to provide connections to major transportation and commercial hubs for 600,000 residents. Although exact program boundaries are still being determined based on community feedback, the e-scooter share program is expected to stretch from the northern neighborhoods of Flushing and Auburndale to the southern neighborhoods of Rochdale Village and Springfield Gardens.
The e-scooter share program is part of DOT’s commitment to equity, and aims to provide accessible mobility options to historically underserved communities, thereby easing dependence on motor vehicles by offering an environmentally friendly alternative. The program’s emphasis on accessibility also means that New Yorkers who receive or qualify for any local, state, or federal assistance program are eligible for discounted e-scooter share rates, and that wheel-chair accessible scooters are available as well. So far, over 1,200 riders have taken almost 140,000 rides with discounted pricing.
The program also places a strong emphasis on safety, and features robust safety requirements, including an in-app safety training, a quiz and age verification for new riders, and a “Beginner Mode” during which each rider’s first three trips are speed-limited at ten miles per hour and cannot start in overnight hours. As a result, Transportation has recorded few serious injuries and no fatalities through the program so far. The three operators will work with Transportation to continue implementing safety and accessibility requirements and promoting compliance with e-scooter share parking rules.
Transportation Commissioner Rodriguez stated, “E-scooters and other forms of micromobility will help us build a cleaner and greener transportation system that connects residents to commercial and transit hubs. I am thrilled that our e-scooter sharing program is here to stay and that it will expand to eastern Queens. Our pilot program met and exceeded our ambitious goals—and it’s time we make it available in more neighborhoods.”
City Council Majority Whip Selvena N. Brooks-Powers stated, “I celebrate the extension of DOT’s e-scooter sharing program to transit desert neighborhoods like communities I represent in Southeast Queens that have been long underserved by public transit. This program will provide a clean, efficient, and affordable micro-mobility option to community members in need.”
By: Dylan Shusterman (Dylan is the CityLaw intern and a New York Law School student, Class of 2025.)
DOT: NYC DOT Announces Queens Expansion of E-Scooter Sharing Program (June 15, 2023).
Good Afternoon,
Although the scooter has been used and helps people get around it is as equally important that rules of safety be part of the promotion to be able to utilize them,
Safety should be following signs that are on the streets as all the cars are suppose to do. Going the same way as traffic. Waiting for lights. Watching people dont get ran over.
Wearing hard hats, are the batteries charged in safe places?
Everyone should have some type of I D. Also where do they leave them when they are finished using them.???