HAPPY WORLD CAR-FREE DAY!

In case you missed it, September 22 is celebrated worldwide as Car-Free Day. The name of the day speaks for itself: a day for people to use other means of transportation to get around, whether it be transit, walking or micromobility options.

Here in Florida, the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority announced that it was waiving fares all day on its 40 bus and trolley routs in celebration of the day and to push the message of reducing cars on the roads. As PSTA’s CEO told the Tampa Bay Times:

One of the easiest ways we can reduce our carbon footprint is by taking public transportation. PSTA is committed to becoming more environmentally friendly and you can too by hopping on a bus and let us take you to your destination.

In celebration of World Car-Free day, the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority will be fare-free for all riders on all routes on Thursday. — Photo from Tampa Bay Times.

Journalist and writer Carlton Reid listed 45 reasons to ride a bike for Forbes in honor of Car-Free Day, and of course looking sexier made it.

Ready or not, micromobility is coming to Fort Myers

As its population increases, so does traffic congestion in Fort Myers. Yet not all of the city’s residents are wanting to get around in car, especially as parking prices are increasing downtown. So many have taken to driving golf carts to get around.

People use a golf cart for transportation along McGregor Boulevard just south of Colonial Boulevard in Fort Myers on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. — Andrew West/The News-Press

The city’s bicycle and pedestrian advisory board warned the city council that it needed to start addressing infrastructure concerns as more golf carts, and micromobility in general, started taking the streets. As the boards chairman, Ezekiel Robbins, told the city council:

For us, the bicycle pedestrian advisory board, I think now it can be considered as the micromobility advisory board with so many things coming to us that looked like they were way out in the future. But now, it’s what we’re looking at presently. When you’re traveling around our community, you will see electric bikes, electric one wheelers and electric scooters in addition to the traditional bicycles and pedestrians. It’s all over our city and the question is how are we going to properly get our residents to be able to go from point A to point B safely.

Keep in mind that the Town of Fort Myers Beach already banned motorized micromobility devices like e-bikes, e-scooters, and e-skateboards, from its sidewalks.

Ultimately Fort Myers decided to not allow golf carts on its roads at this time, but instead to look into the matter further and asked the city staff to draft an ordinance on that issue. While safety is an issue, some members of the council didn’t understand that getting people out of cars resulted in less congestion and safer road conditions, as highlighted by this comment from council member Teresa Watkins-Brown:

Our streets are congested right now. In the future it may be something that can be done, but right now with the congestion and deaths we have had in accidents on a continuing basis, it would not be for us to allow golf carts right now.

Getting cars off the roads using transit and micromobility is a proven way to reduce the congestion and deaths that appear to be plaguing Fort Myers.

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Bringing the receipts in South Florida for protective bike lanes

Calls for protective bike lanes have been increasing in South Florida, and one cyclist has brought a couple videos that highlight the need.

Kurt Kaminer spoke with Local10 in Miami about the need for protective lanes and gave to instructive videos: one showing a driver trying to pass some bicyclists on a grass shoulder and another with a driver cutting across some bicyclist in the bike lane.

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Energy Equity Study released by Florida AG Commissioner Nikki Fried details how just a drop in the bucket can help

Just over a year ago, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services commissioned a study to analyze the systemic inequalities, barriers, and limited access to public and private resources that low-to-moderate income (LMI) and vulnerable Floridian households are facing. Commissioner Nikki Fried announced the findings of the Study of Energy Equity within Florida, which included looking into transportation and micromobility options for LMI households. According to Fried:

As ground zero for climate change, it is imperative that Florida move toward a resilient, renewable energy-based economy— but we must also make certain the benefits of this transition are available equally across our state. For too long, too many communities have been marginalized when it comes to energy equity, resulting in environmental hazards, lack of energy efficient housing, and an underinvestment in energy infrastructure.

One of the findings of the study was that a 1% increase in electric vehicle adoption, including buses or micromobility options like scooters and e-bikes, would provide $175 million in benefits from reduced health care costs, avoided deaths, and improved quality of life.

As you can see from the figure above, there are still large areas of Florida that are missing shared micromobility options that can help low-to-moderate income families that otherwise lack access to private cars.

What happens when an e-scooter and an e-bike have a baby?

In e-scooter news, Razor has launched a seated cargo scooter that is making waves across the industry. The EcoSmart Cargo has a range of 16 miles and can go up to 20 miles per hour with a 1,000W motor.

“The EcoSmart Cargo was meant to be a stylish, highly versatile electric scooter option that can be utilized in a number of ways, making it easier than ever for scooter users to get from point A to point B, even with extra cargo or an additional passenger,” Razor’s senior director of brand marketing Josh Shave told TechCrunch.

If at first you thought this might be an e-bike, you aren’t alone. As Andrew Hawkins wrote for The Verge:

It remains to be seen whether customers will consider this a more rugged scooter, an e-bike with a few missing parts, or a skinnier moped. To me, it looks like a cross between a RadRunner electric utility bike and those Zoomers fat-tire scooters. More broadly, it’s an established company taking a risk on a new form factor, and that’s cool. More of this, please.

I agree, more of this please.

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Ford is developing a phone app to warn distracted drivers of nearby bicyclists and pedestrians?

Ford announced that it is working on a new smart phone app that will alert drivers of “hard-to-see pedestrians, bicyclists and more.” That’s quite a characterization considering pedestrians, bicyclists “and more” are only hard to see if the driver isn’t looking or the vehicle is so poorly designed for the safety of those outside.

The tech will be demonstrated this week at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America’s World Congress in Los Angeles using T-Mobile’s 5G network and Bluetooth Low Energy.

The app would work in the same way that the Covid contact tracing app worked, as Cycling Weekly explained:

In that situation smartphones worked together to exchange information via Bluetooth and - as many people discovered when they were ‘pinged’ despite the phone of a Covid-positive person being in the next house - Ford's app would “see" through obstacles such as walls. Unlike cameras or radar, BLE does not rely on line-of-sight detection, which means cyclists could be detected even when they’re behind buildings or other vehicles. …
According to Ford, the system in the vehicle interprets a vulnerable road user is using the device, differentiates pedestrians from cyclists and others based on their travelling speed, further evaluating risk by their direction.

Aaron Gordon, writing for Vice, is understandably skeptical.

It is difficult to envision how this system supposedly works. The idea is that the app would somehow know a pedestrian or cyclist—“even those hidden from direct view,” the press release says—is about to emerge in front of your car and create some kind of alert in the car via the app telling you there is someone nearby so you… slow down? Look up? Slam on the brakes? It is not clear what is supposed to happen after this alert occurs, other than to force you, the driver, to pay attention to the road. In theory.

Distracted driving and larger vehicles are undeniably huge factors in the increasing numbers of people injured and killed on our roads. It doesn’t make sense how an alert on a driver’s phone will somehow increase safety. Yet again, we can’t rely on motordom to look out for the health and safety of anyone outside of their cars.

Florida Micromobility Newsletter

How'd you celebrate World Car-Free Day?