City Life

Of course, the biggest barrier to bike or e-bike adoption is street safety. But the best way to build a constituency for bikeable streets is to flood the zone with bikes, creating a virtuous cycle where more cyclists vividly justify the need for better bike infrastructure. That’s what New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco have done through their popular bikeshare programs. Scooter share services have had a similar, albeit somewhat lesser, effect in smaller cities across the country.

1. Yes, safety is the main issue. Even if someone gave me an ebike for free, I wouldn't use it where I live. There are almost no bike lanes where I live, and the ones that do exist are on roads where vehicle speeds are 45-65 MPH, the lanes are extremely narrow, the lanes are not protected, and most drivers treat the lanes like turn lanes. A former coworker of mine was previously a pro cyclist, and would ride to work everyday. But after some serious close calls he ended up giving it up and going back to driving because the area here is so extremely hostile and dangerous for cyclists (and pedestrians). There's nowhere in at least a 50 mile radius of where I live where I would ever feel safe as a cyclist. And farther out from that it's extremely rural, so cycling isn't viable transportation anyway.

2. Bike and scooter shares flooding the streets are the opposite of helpful. People just drop them anywhere, block sidewalks, clutter street corners, etc. They're a menace that does nothing to promote safer infrastructure.