Spin’s orange-and-black electric scooters may yet return to Pittsburgh, but the city-led experiment that first brought them here is over.
“As a formal entity, MovePGH no longer exists,” said Maria Montaño, press secretary for Mayor Ed Gainey. “That pilot has run its course.”
MovePGH hit the streets in 2021 under former Mayor Bill Peduto and DOMI’s then-director, Karina Ricks. The aim was to provide abundant, diverse transportation options to help more people get around without a private vehicle.
The project introduced “hubs” that grouped together transportation options ranging from POGOH bikes and Spin scooters to bus stops and designated ride-hailing spots. City officials also encouraged people to use a sort of digital hub, an app called Transit where residents could see all the different transportation modes and knit them together.
MovePGH ended administratively, but the project’s physical and digital infrastructure remains, which raises questions about what residents may expect from the city and the companies it orchestrated to bring MovePGH to life.
The Transit app, for instance, has since introduced a paid subscription called “Transit Royale.” To see the full range of information the app provides, users are now prompted to pay, whereas they previously enjoyed free access.
Many of the app’s features are still available even without paying, including, critically, the trip-planning function, said Stephen Miller, Transit app’s policy lead.
Creating the subscription service wasn’t a simple decision, “but it helps keep the app ad-free,” he said. “We don't have any advertising trackers in the app because we think people deserve privacy.”
Roughly 90,000 people use the Transit app in Pittsburgh every month, Miller said, which the company estimates is about 45 percent of Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s ridership. Transit app’s surveys show that many of those users earn lower-than-average incomes, and do not have access to a car. Miller said if riders can’t afford a subscription that they can send a message through the app and Transit will provide one, “no questions asked.”
Still, the introduction of the paid subscription troubles Laura Chu Wiens, the executive director of Pittsburghers for Public Transit. The city encouraged riders to rely on the MovePGH services, she said, and then the rug was pulled out from under them.
“This is what happens when you have a program that’s entirely made up of corporations and service providers with no opportunity for input or involvement to shape the program by the users [or] the community,” she said.
Chu Wiens said that must change if Pittsburgh continues to engage private companies to offer transportation services.
“The reason why these things are ostensibly considered solutions is that we continue to fail to invest in the kind of baseline pedestrian and [mass] transit infrastructure and service that we need,” she said. “Until we do that, these programs are a Band-Aid at best and they create harm at worst.”
During the last year’s debates about Spin scooters and their place in Pittsburgh, a pressing concern — beyond improperly parked scooters, people riding on sidewalks, and the exclusion of those with differing abilities — emerged about the scooters’ safety. Despite low reported numbers, several residents came forward to say they or their family members had sustained injury. At least one rider, Lawrence Chertik, died following a scooter accident. Previously, city officials said they were unaware of the incidents, but were investigating them.
If the Pennsylvania legislature makes it possible for Spin to return to Pittsburgh, the company intends to introduce a new model, said John Lankford, Spin’s senior director for partnerships and policy. That scooter has bigger wheels to better handle uneven road surfaces and a shorter deck — where riders stand — to deter tandem riding. It also has a cell phone holder, so people don’t have to toggle between looking at the road and looking at directions.
In addition, Lankford said the company is working to ensure there are more designated scooter parking areas, higher penalties for improper parking or riding, and better publication of Spin’s
integration with the city’s 3-1-1 complaint line.
“That just makes it easier for anyone to report” an issue, he said.
Unlike many of the cities in which Spin operates, Pittsburgh had a clear vision for how different modes of transportation could work together, Lankford said. That was valuable “because it made it easier for consumers to start using alternative transportation options,” he said.
Lankford’s sentiment was echoed by Miller of Transit app as well as David White, who leads Pittsburgh’s bikeshare system, POGOH. White said his organization’s mission aligned with the goals of the pilot: “to change the default from picking up your car keys to picking up your phone.”
The U.S Department of Transportation says transportation sources are the nation’s largest contributor to greenhouse gasses. White said to head off the worst of climate change, Pittsburgh has to change how people get around, and MovePGH advanced that goal.
“We were able to prove [that] companies that compete against each other in other markets can coordinate in our market. By working together we can create a stronger, more resilient transportation system,” he said. He said he hopes city officials will continue to invest in that idea, but “whether or not we call it MovePGH is less important to me.”
It is unclear what role the city sees for itself in promoting or advancing transportation alternatives.
DOMI expects to release a final report on the MovePGH initiative in the next few weeks, Montaño said. She added it would be premature to comment on the program’s successes or challenges, or conjecture about future mobility decisions in the city.
