The City of Pittsburgh’s two-year electric scooter pilot program is set to come to a close in July, and many residents are hesitant about its potential to continue.
Speakers at a public hearing held inside the City-County building Wednesday said while the scooters could provide a greener alternative to residents traveling short distances, they have also posed barriers to pedestrians and riders, alike.
Kevin Joa, a bus operator, said scooters take up space on city streets and sidewalks, which makes travel especially hard for passengers in wheelchairs, as well as for those navigating crowded intersections.
“It makes it unsafe for other travelers trying to get around us because we're trying to avoid scooters in a 40-foot bus,” said Joa, a Brighton Heights resident who has worked for Pittsburgh Regional Transit for seven years.
The scooter pilot program launched in July 2021 as part of MovePGH, a two-year initiative to improve how Pittsburghers get around. The initiative created travel hubs that put all of the city’s options into one place, from buses and bikes to mopeds and — for the first time — stand-on electric scooters from the San Francisco-based tech company Spin.
The future of electric scooters in Pittsburgh, however, hinges on whether or not state lawmakers pass legislation that would allow it to expand the program.
In June 2021, then-Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law legislation that allowed cities of the second class — of which Pittsburgh is the only one in Pennsylvania — to pilot low-speed electric scooters. A two-year expiration date, however, was written into the law.
Erie-area state senator Daniel Laughlin said in a February memo he planned to sponsor legislation that would authorize an electric low-speed scooter program in Pittsburgh, as well as in second class-A or third class cities, though that legislation has not yet been introduced.
Lucas said the city will be able to modify the operating permit issued to Spin and work with the company to deploy more parking corrals and charging stations once the future of the program is determined.
“When we have more information and when there's a commitment for the program to be here longer than this two-year pilot, we can then look at having them make investments in those dedicated places,” Lucas said, “and ramping up their penalties, as well, for people who violate and who aren't following those rules.”
Spin general manager Jason Schaffner said the company has a crew of 40 people who remove scooters from the city’s streets and sidewalks 24 hours a day.
Per the city’s policy, scooters must be left in a designated parking corral or hub, legal unmetered vehicle parking space or adjacent to a bicycle rack. Users are required to take a picture of their scooter at the end of each trip, which Schaffner said Spin’s staff reviews in order to follow up if scooters are improperly parked.
People who violate parking rules are subject to a three-strike system: the first offense gets a warning; the second offense leads to fines and a third results in a suspension of the account.
“For users [who] have received a warning, you see 92% of those users do not go on to re-offend,” Schaffner told council members during a post-agenda session before the hearing.
People can report improperly parked scooters to Spin’s customer service line or to 311, which automatically alerts staff. Schaffner said the company’s drivers are then immediately dispatched to respond to those requests.
Residents speaking Wednesday, however, were skeptical of the speedy process described, reporting instances of scooters left obstructing pathways for multiple days.
“Find a way to get people to put them back where they belong,” said Tierra Collins of the Hill District.
In the program’s first year, more than 40% of surveyed e-scooter users were students, and almost half of all Spin users were between the ages of 18 and 24.
According to the program’s mid-pilot report, released in October, men were over-represented among e-scooter users compared to their share of the city’s total population. The most popular neighborhoods for scooter trips were relatively flat areas of the city, such as Oakland, the East End and Lawrenceville.
Riders in several designated “access zones” can receive a 25% discount off of their total e-scooter trip fee, and riders who qualify for governmental assistance and sign up through Spin Access can receive 75% off each trip they take. Those enrolled in Spin Access, however, make up just over 2% of users.
Gabriel McMoreland, a member of Pittsburghers for Public Transit, urged the city to end the program and instead focus on policy solutions that serve residents with the highest need for transportation.
“As a blind person and a resident of Pittsburgh, I regularly encounter scooters that block safe passage in my neighborhood sidewalks,” she said. “But scooters are not the only reason why my neighbors and I don’t have the transportation access we need — like many others, I can’t afford to live in the parts of Pittsburgh that have quality transit.”
While several councilors noted the scooters could be useful in certain neighborhoods, they urged the city and the company to find ways to store them out of the right of way.
Lucas said a 50-scooter geofencing pilot program will use technology that bars users from leaving scooters on city sidewalks.
Oakland-area councilwoman Erika Strassburger applauded the detection measure, suggesting the city and company also find less technical ways to keep scooters out of harm’s way.
“Utilizing the people who are eyes on the street anyway, empowering other people in business districts or in places where ridership is higher, like the district I represent,” she said.
The city isn’t paying for Spin to operate in Pittsburgh, instead using the same permitting model that applies to the POGOH bike-share and Zipcar. But Lucas said when — and if — the scooter program continues to evolve, DOMI’s work to improve the city’s infrastructure will benefit Spin users.
“We will be addressing a lot of those issues [discussed], not by dedicating resources into this program,” she said, “but just by doing the work that we are doing to make our streets safer for people on wheels.”
