Project Background

E-scooters, defined as shared, battery powered scooters that are a form of micromobility, have become popular in the past few years. However, the rise of e-scooters has caused as many problems as it has solved. For-profit micromobility communities have taken advantge of communities, rather than helping them. The current situation of dockless scooters poses safety concerns for other road users, and also causes unnecessary injuries while riding them. The privatized, decentralized nature of micromobility means that equity is a hard goal to achieve. Additionally, recent studies by NACTO have concluded that the e-scooter industry is failing due to falling ridership, which raises the question of the future of micromobility. We aim to solve these issues by reimagining the role of scooters in the Los Angeles transit landscape, by proposing a dense network of docked scooters and micromobility lanes that equitably distribute a valuable form of transportation to all Los Angeles citizens.