More e-bike sharing could be coming in the future

DC recently announced that more crental e-bikes could be coming to DC, which has been the trend over the last year. 

Last year (I know) Arlington was having it's dockless vehicle pilot program and announced that more companies could enter the market. 

County commuter services bureau chief Jim Larsen told the Transportation Commission last Thursday (Nov. 1) that two more scooter companies could soon enter Arlington as well: Skip and Lyft, which only recently began offering scooters in addition to its ridesharing service.

Then, by January, Larsen expects that Jump could also make the move from D.C. into Arlington and offer both electric bikes and scooters in the county.

Jump Scooters came to Arlington over the summer, but no bikes yet. Safety concerns about scooters remain, and the scope is becoming clearer, but hardly clear.

Others on the commission were less willing than Clement to attack the program’s legitimacy. Commissioner Jim Lantelme was interested in comparing the number of scooter-involved crashes to those involving bikes, noting that they “might actually be safer than bicycles or other methods” of getting around. Larsen, however, didn’t have such data available.

Meanwhile, in DC

The four companies — Jump (owned by Uber), Lyft, Skip and Spin — will be allowed to deploy up to 10,000 scooters starting Jan. 1, nearly doubling the number of devices available for rent in the city. In addition, the city is issuing two permits for e-bike operations to allow a total of 5,000 e-bikes beginning Jan. 1.

The city had announced plans in October to reduce the number of scooter operators and put four slots for scooter operations and four for e-bikes up for bid. Thirteen scooter companies and five e-bike companies applied, according to DDOT. An interagency committee evaluated the applications on a 198-point scale and selected the top point-earners.

Helbiz, an Italian company that launched its first e-bike operation in Rome last month, and Jump, which already operates e-bikes in the District, secured bike permits. Each will be allowed to deploy up to 2,500 of the devices.

Currently, the eight companies permitted to operate deploy just over 5,200 scooters combined. Additionally, Jump has nearly 1,000 e-bikes in service.

I'm not a big fan of the limits, but I think things are moving in a good direction. 

Comments

[Zack Rules]

Jump ebikes have been in Arlington since October. You can ride over from DC or Alexandria but as far as I know, they are not deploying them each morning.

[Dewey]

The 2019 regulatory changes on ebikes in Arlington & Fairfax help, the DC Council still needs to pass Cheh's EMD & Vulnerable User Collision Recovery bills http://lims.dccouncil.us/Legislation/B23-0359 & http://lims.dccouncil.us/Legislation/B23-0083