photo by Mr.TinMD
“Dear PoPville,
If you’re an e-bike or scooter rider who rides on the sidewalk – please slow down while passing pedestrians!
I’ve had a couple of alarming encounters recently – I don’t know if this is just because I’m walking on streets without bike lanes more frequently or if this behavior is increasing. About five times over the past month, I’ve been walking on the sidewalk when a person on an e-bike or scooter has flown by me at a high speed. With the scooters, sometimes there’s enough noise for a warning, but the e-bikes are pretty quiet, and given how fast they can go, it’s difficult to hear them ahead of time.
Don’t get me wrong – I am a fan of additional modes of transportation, especially the e-bikes as several people I know have come to swear by them, but with any new technology, there are also safety concerns. This problem clearly stems from
lack of bike lanes (it seems to rarely happen on streets with them) and the fact that drivers in DC make the roads so dangerous for bikers – but if riders are using the sidewalks to go 20mph, there’s no longer a safe space for pedestrians. The amount of times recently that I could have unknowingly stepped sideways into the path of a fast scooter or e-bike has been too many for comfort.
Doing some research, I found that this is a common problem in other cities as well. For example, in October 2024, the NYC Comptroller found that “e-bikes, stand-up scooters, and mopeds account for 1.8% of all pedestrian fatalities between 2020 to 2023, or eight out of 449; and roughly 4.5% of all pedestrian injuries, or 1,276 out of 28,450 total injuries.” (source) This is obviously still significantly less than cars, but neither is it ideal. Additional data in the report shows that injuries from e-bikes/scooters have more than doubled the rate of previous bike-related pedestrian injuries since e-bikes and scooters have been available in NYC. Unfortunately, data collection around this seems to be lacking, and I couldn’t locate any statistics for DC.
I’ve written to my council member, but if anyone else has had similar problems, I encourage you to ask the DC Council to find a solution to this issue, possibly by putting pressure on Capital Bikeshare and the various scooter rental companies to find a way to enforce their rule that e-bikes/scooters cannot be ridden on the sidewalk, and/or enforce a severe speed limitation for riders using the sidewalks. Although we live in an age with many larger problems than this, it seems worthwhile to have the council investigate and develop solutions to this issue before a pedestrian is severely injured.
Thank you.”