Planning and Accommodating the Micromobility Revolution and Its Impact on Public Health

Micromobility has grown immensely over the past decade, encompassing both public shared systems and private ownership, and, as Burford et al. have found, a surge in user injuries and deaths has accompanied the growth.¹ Micromobility refers to the use of small vehicles, such as bicycles and scooters, that are either human powered or electric.² These vehicles are ideal for short trips—although electric-powered micromobility has expanded the potential distance range.

BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES

Micromobility appeals to users—whether they are using a privately owned vehicle or one from a sharing system—because it increases their physical activity, promotes sustainability, replaces car trips, and provides a convenient first- and last-mile connection to public transportation.

Cities have expanded the ecosystem of available mobility options, leading to rapid growth in micromobility modes. Despite the benefits from this expansion, local and state governments have not made adequate investments to support these modes, leading to major disparities among neighborhoods and racial and ethnic groups in the risks faced while using micromobility.

Considering micromobility’s current and predicted future growth, it is urgent for cities and states to ensure the safety of micromobility users and nonusers (e.g., pedestrians). Injuries and deaths related to micromobility have substantial impacts on health care delivery and costs, including millions of dollars annually in direct costs to private and government insurance. Switching to micromobility can help households save on car payments, insurance, maintenance, and fuel, while also reducing costs for local, state, and federal governments on building and maintaining transportation infrastructure.

States and cities should consider where, when, and how many people are riding these transportation modes to better accommodate and promote their usage. Unfortunately, most cities lack adequate infrastructure to support micromobility growth. Many states and cities have either required micromobility modes to share bicycle infrastructure or encouraged their use on sidewalks.³ Most bicyclists and e-bicyclists use existing bicycle infrastructure, such as separated bicycle lanes, although they may resort to using sidewalks when there is no bicycle infrastructure, especially on higher volume, higher speed roads.^4,5 Those riding e-scooters, hoverboards, and other micromobility vehicles use a mix of sidewalks and bicycle infrastructure; this is not ideal, considering the growth of micromobility and the speed differential between pedestrians, bicycles, e-bicycles, and e-scooters.

Despite the growth in both bicycling and other micromobility modes since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, most cities and states have not kept up with micromobility demand. City transportation infrastructure is mostly dedicated to motor vehicle travel and parking, which does nothing to decrease collision risks for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and bicyclists⁶ and discourages alternative transportation modes.⁷

SAFETY AND INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS

To accommodate the growth of micromobility and encourage its safe use, dedicated travel and storage spaces are needed. The single-file cycling lanes in most cities may put micromobility users at risk on higher volume and higher speed roadways when trying to pass or avoid obstacles.⁸ Widening bicycle lanes or increasing the separation between bicycle lanes and motor vehicle traffic lanes may help decrease micromobility user conflicts and reduce their need to enter motor vehicle traffic.⁹

Cities and states should also significantly expand micromobility infrastructure by adding bicycle lanes to arterial and collector roads. Also important is improving the quality of the lanes, including ensuring smooth surfaces in areas with high micromobility use, as many of these vehicles have small wheels. Protecting lanes and intersections can help prevent motor vehicles from using these spaces for driving, parking, or turning, reducing potential conflicts. Additionally, intersection and roadway designs should prioritize the safety of pedestrians and micromobility users over motor vehicle speed and efficiency because these users face the highest injury risks. Traffic-calming measures on multimodal roads can further help reduce these risks.

More aggressive policies can also make a difference, such as limiting motor vehicle access (e.g., in low or no emissions zones) and increasing the price drivers pay for parking where walking, transit, and micromobility use is high. Reducing motor vehicle use in urban areas, where micromobility use is typically most frequent and dense, can help reduce the injuries related to micromobility and other road users observed by Burford et al.¹ Finally, the safety of micromobility vehicles probably needs to be better regulated, considering incidents related to battery fires and other device failures.

PROTECTIVE GEAR AND PERSONAL SAFETY BEHAVIORS

Falls and collisions with other users, pedestrians, and stationary objects are also common causes of injury. Improving the coverage and quality of dedicated infrastructure is a priority for cities to reduce and prevent micromobility user injuries and deaths, followed by increasing personal safety behaviors. Helmets are effective at preventing head injuries among bicyclists depending on the type of collision, and specialized helmets are available for motorized micromobility users to offer protection at higher impact speeds.¹⁰ The limited research on helmet efficacy suggests it can protect e-scooter users during falls, which are a common cause of injury in this group.¹¹

Some localities have laws that require helmets, but these laws have not always proven effective at increasing helmet use or reducing head injuries among micromobility users. This may be because of poor, selective, or inequitable enforcement. To address this, additional public health strategies are needed to promote helmet use, such as incentivizing it through workplaces, schools, health care facilities, and community events or including helmets with every micromobility-sharing service or commercial sale.³

Government research agencies and other organizations could incentivize the development of innovative helmet designs and protective gear that better aligns with user preferences and needs via grants, challenges, commercial initiatives, or other opportunities. Similar support, including the development of automated lighting solutions, could encourage micromobility users to adopt reflective and lighting gear.

Findings by Burford et al. suggest that drug and alcohol use by micromobility users, particularly among e-scooter users, is a risk factor for injuries and accounts for nearly 10% of injuries.¹ Additionally, according to 2022 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, 20% of the pedalcyclists in fatal collisions were riding under the influence of alcohol, with blood alcohol levels greater than 0.08 grams per deciliter. Awareness campaigns about the risks of riding under the influence of drugs or alcohol hold promise for shifting risk perception, especially when paired with programs that encourage safer alternatives when intoxicated, such as taking taxis or public transportation. Limited enforcement, if focused on areas and times of alcohol consumption, may be a consideration, but there has been little evaluation of such programs for micromobility and they may result in unequal application, as seen with similar policies.¹⁰

One other safety behavior to consider is the travel speed of micromobility users, including in shared spaces with slower modes, such as walking. Most shared micromobility modes have a maximum set speed, as do many privately owned vehicles, but they can be modified to allow faster speeds. Many states have a speed limit for micromobility, including for travel on sidewalks, if allowed, but they are inconsistent, and their enforcement likely is as well.³ Addressing speeding in a consistent, equitable way for these modes may be challenging because they are not registered and do not carry license plates, and automated speed enforcement is unlikely. Providing ample travel spaces for micromobility would probably better address this problem and reduce sidewalk usage.

DATA COLLECTION AND POLICY SUPPORT

It is impossible to address many of the safety issues surrounding micromobility without adequate data about the users (e.g., age, gender, race/ethnicity), user density and frequency, where they ride, and comprehensive collision data, as Burford et al. note.¹ Regular, consistent measurement of use would help researchers, advocates, and policymakers make better decisions about how to more fully integrate these modes into the mobility offerings of cities. Federal and state incentives to collect these data, as with motor vehicle traffic volumes and transit passenger data, would help increase our understanding of these modes. Additionally, public health data collection needs improvements to capture specific micromobility modes to better link modes to injuries and outcomes. If we cannot reliably track trends in use, understanding the context in which injuries are occurring will make reducing and preventing those injuries very challenging.

Micromobility provides valuable opportunities to make transportation more sustainable, healthy, cost effective, and equitable by replacing automobile trips and complementing other modes, such as public transportation and walking.^12,13 Implementing supportive infrastructure and promoting safe behaviors among motorists and micromobility users can help prevent injuries and deaths. City, state, and federal officials can enable many of these changes via policies and directing funding to these activities.