Transit Time: Charlotte's scooters are making a comeback

Plus: City omitted unfavorable transit polling details; Streetlights proposed for dangerous Charlotte roads; CATS meeting on Silver Line stations; Transit pass art contest winners

You’re reading Transit Time, a weekly newsletter for Charlotte people who leave the house. Cars, buses, light rail, bikes, scooters … if you use it to get around the city, we write about it. Transit Time is produced in partnership among The Charlotte Ledger, WFAE and the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute.

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Scooter trips up 61% this year; City caps the number but is also adding protected bike lanes to improve safety and mobility

By Lindsey Banks 

Growing up, scooters were used for after-school adventures with friends or going on Sunday evening excursions with the family. But today, they’re redefining how we get around parts of Charlotte.   

Electric scooters are taking the sidewalks and bike lanes near uptown as a new form of transportation. The pilot program was introduced to the city in mid-2018, and the city enacted permanent rules and a permitting program in early 2019.

But the pandemic put a halt to the plan in 2020. E-scooter trips were down 67% between January and May compared with the same period a year earlier. Now, e-scooter usage is on the rise again, up 61% compared to 2020, according to figures from the city.

Last weekend in South End, flashes of green, orange or white zoomed around. These colors represent the three scooter companies: Lime, Spin and Bird. Most riders were in pairs of two, using the scooters to make it to their dinner reservations or to ride along the Rail Trail.

A visitor to Charlotte, Danielle Casan of Denver, Colo., said she was excited to see Charlotte also had them as an option.

“It’s easier to get around in the downtown area on your scooter compared to a car or even a bike,” she said. “Parking is expensive in any city. Covid increased the prices of car services, but scooters have stayed the same, so it’s more affordable.” 

Because e-scooters are still new, they currently only play a small part in Charlotte’s transportation. Each scooter company is permitted to have 50 to 400 e-scooters in the city.  

“One of the primary hurdles to people using scooters today is the lack of them outside of downtown in the adjacent neighborhoods because of that restrictive cap,” said Shannon Binns, founder of Sustain Charlotte, a nonprofit organization that focuses on advancing regional sustainability through smart growth. He spoke to Transit Time on the phone as he biked to work. 

“Scooters represent a form of transportation that is healthier, more efficient, less expensive and less environmentally damaging than driving cars,” he said. “Scooters have zero pollution.” 

Binns also said there’s an inequity among scooter and vehicle sharing companies on the local level because of the capacity limit. Vehicle services, like Uber and Lyft, are not limited to how many cars can be in the city. Scooter companies also have to prove that each scooter is being used regularly, which is not a requirement for these vehicle companies.   

Another hurdle is safety. Charlotte was originally designed for four-wheeled vehicles, not e-scooters and other small, non-car ways of getting around that planners refer to as “micro-mobility” options. However, the streets are slowly adapting to accommodate those choices more easily. 

In 2015, Sustain petitioned the city along with partnering neighborhoods for protected bike lanes — lanes separated by a barrier — on Parkwood Avenue, from Davidson Street to The Plaza in Plaza-Midwood:

Before-and-after illustrations of protected bike lanes on Parkwood Avenue between the NoDa area and Plaza-Midwood. They will also ease scooter-riding. (Illustration courtesy of the city of Charlotte)

In 2016, they petitioned the city again for another protected bike lane on Sixth Street, in uptown and the west end of Fifth Street:

The protected bike lane along Fifth and Sixth streets will cut through the middle of uptown and make traveling safer for bikers, scooter riders and others using a growing range of “micro-mobility” options. (Photo by Grant Baldwin Photography, courtesy of Sustain Charlotte via city of Charlotte)

It’s called a “road diet.” The city is converting a four-lane road into three lanes with protected bike lanes in both directions. Construction is currently underway and set to be complete by the end of the year. Binns said these lanes will offer safer mobility for not just bike and e-scooter riders but drivers and pedestrians, too. 

Sustain Charlotte also advocated for rules to make scooters easily accessible to everyone. 

The rules of the road include a 15 mph speed limit and a helmet requirement for riders 16 years or younger. Electric scooters can be operated in bike lanes and on most sidewalks in Charlotte, excluding a section in uptown bound by Church Street, Stonewall Street, College Street and Seventh Street.  

Additionally, e-scooters can be parked anywhere along sidewalks as long as they are out of the way, saving uptown visitors from finding and paying for parking.  

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Scooters: How they work 

Each scooter company has its own app you can download to your phone. From there, you can enter a payment method and enable Location Services to see what scooters are available near you. Once you find one, you scan the QR code on the scooter’s handlebars and start your ride. 

When you’re ready to end your ride, you end it on the app and take a picture of your scooter to confirm you parked it at an authorized location. You can park your scooter along any sidewalk as long as it’s out of the way. 

Each company also has its own rates: Lime and Bird are both $1 to start and 15 cents per minute. Spin also requires a $1 base fee and a by-the-minute rate from 15 cents to 33 cents depending on the area. 

E-scooters are charged at night by a contract workforce that picks up scooters with a depleted battery after 9 p.m. The dead scooters are recharged and ready to go by 6 a.m.

Lindsey Banks is a reporting intern with The Charlotte Ledger.

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Charlotte planning director’s presentation on transit poll excluded results that weren’t positive

by Steve Harrison, WFAE

Earlier this year, city planning director Taiwo Jaiyeoba cited poll results to paint an optimistic picture of support for a penny sales tax increase to fund an $8 billion to $12 billion transportation plan.

But either he or the poll sponsor left out some results that were less favorable to the Charlotte MOVES Task Force plan. One was that Mecklenburg County residents who don’t live in Charlotte prefer road funding to providing money for public transportation. Another result left out: Transportation isn’t at the top of voters’ priority lists.

Jaiyeoba discussed the poll results with the media and City Council in February.

This slide shows the results of a poll presented by planning director Taiwo Jaiyeoba to the media and City Council in February. The numbers are accurate but did not include results that appear less favorable. WFAE obtained the full poll results this month.

Jaiyeoba’s presentation came as the mayors of the north Mecklenburg towns were expressing frustration that they haven’t received enough benefits from the existing half-cent sales tax for transit, approved by voters in 1998.

The city did not release a full copy of the poll results and questions when asked by WFAE earlier this year. The city said it didn’t have the poll, which was conducted by the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund. City spokesman Cory Burkarth said “it wouldn’t be appropriate to use a city employee and taxpayer resources” to request the full poll from the group.

This month, though, the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund released the full results to WFAE “to provide transparency.” The full poll results can be viewed on WFAE’s website.

While it showed that Jaiyeoba’s numbers were accurate, it also showed areas of concern for the plan that weren’t in his presentation. They include:

• “Improving public transit and traffic congestion” was the fourth-ranked priority of people surveyed, behind improving public education, reducing crime and reducing government spending. It was ahead of the environment.

• Asked how best to spend money on traffic transportation infrastructure, the most popular option among respondents was “road and traffic congestion projects,” with an average response of 7.9 on a scale of 1-10. That was ahead of greenways (6.8), improving sidewalks/pedestrian spaces (6.8), light rail expansion (6.3) and bus routes (6.1).

Rail transit and buses would receive the biggest share of the $8 billion to $12 billion Charlotte MOVES plan. The plan calls for spending on roads, but there are no specific road projects listed for north Mecklenburg County.

For transit supporters, the most optimistic result was that a majority of people surveyed are in favor of the plan.

The poll question told people: “The plan would cost between $8-12 billion over 30 years. Half of the money would come from the federal and state government. The other half would come from the county, and city levels, via existing taxes or fees as well as potential increases in taxes and fees. These funds would be used over the next 10 years to establish new bus routes with priority bus-only lanes, install light rail lines, build greenways where walkers and bikers can go long distances without worrying about vehicles, improve sidewalks and pedestrian spaces, and finance construction projects to decrease traffic congestion.”

The poll found that 57% favor that idea while 38% are in opposition.

The city had hoped to place the transit referendum on the November ballot this year. But the city hasn’t formally asked the North Carolina General Assembly for permission to raise the sales tax. That means any decision on the Charlotte MOVES plan will likely be in 2022 or later.

Steve Harrison is a reporter with WFAE, Charlotte’s NPR news source. Reach him at sharrison@wfae.com. This article originally appeared on WFAE’s website and is republished with permission.

Related Transit Time article:

• “Transit Time: Poll finds narrow support for transit sales tax hike” (May 27)

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 In brief…

• Lighting streets proposed: Charlotte roads with the most fatalities and serious injuries would be in line to receive $8 million in street lighting under a massive transportation bill under consideration in the U.S. House. The lighting projects would cover 22.4 miles including stretches of W.T. Harris Boulevard, Brookshire Boulevard, North Tryon Street, South Tryon Street and University City Boulevard. (Observer)

• Inspecting roads? There an app for that: A Charlotte-based startup called GoodRoads has developed a device containing a camera, GPS and motion sensors that uses artificial intelligence to inspect roads on behalf of local governments. “The AI is trained to look for different types of cracks that can trigger different types of maintenance,” the company’s founder said. The app helps governments “understand how fast roads are aging and how well the techniques they’re using are working. That’s where you get the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in savings,” he said. (Charlotte Inno)

• CATS meeting on station planning: The Charlotte Area Transit System is holding a virtual meeting on Tuesday to present the “Lynx Silver Line Transit Oriented Development and Station Area Planning” effort. It’s at 5:30 p.m. and will be live-streamed on YouTube. Details here.

• Art winners: The Charlotte Area Transit System announced the winners of its first-ever contest to design artwork for transit passes. First place went to local art instructor Eva Crawford, whose submission was inspired by the “energy, support and love” she witnessed last year during the painting of the uptown “Black Lives Matter” street mural. (CATS)

  Her winning entry, which will appear on the CATS local monthly pass:

  

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Transit Time is a production of The Charlotte Ledger, WFAE and the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute.

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