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Matute on Downsizing of E-Scooter Companies

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Juan Matute, deputy director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke to Marketplace about the downsizing of e-scooter company Lime. Lime is reportedly pulling out of 12 cities worldwide and laying off 14% of its workforce. Since their first appearance, Lime scooters have been prevalent in many major cities. However, high maintenance costs have prompted Lime and other e-scooter companies to find ways to improve profitability. Matute noted that the U.S. cities Lime is pulling out of share a common physical obstacle to a sweeping adoption of e-scooters. He noted they are all Sunbelt cities where cars are widely used for transportation. “That makes integrating bikes, scooters and other lower-speed mobility options very challenging,” he said.

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Matute on the Rise of Electric Scooters in L.A.

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Juan Matute, deputy director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, spoke to PBS News Hour about electric scooters in the Los Angeles region. While Santa Monica has been more lenient toward electric scooters, cities such as Milwaukee have prohibited them completely, Matute said. Bird bypassed licensing in Santa Monica, he said, explaining, “They wouldn’t have been able to get a license because there wasn’t a category for what they were doing. They wanted to demonstrate something, show that it worked and then attract additional rounds of financing.” When Lime, another electric scooter company, entered the market, Matute said it saturated the market to make it more convenient for people to try them. Electric scooters are intended to solve mobility issues in the city, Matute said. “It kind of remains to be seen what types of trips the scooters are displacing,” he concluded.

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Taylor Comments on Environmental Impact of Electric Scooters

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Brian Taylor, professor of urban planning, commented in a Vox story on the rapid proliferation of electric scooters in U.S. cities. While scooters could benefit the environment by replacing car trips, they might also discourage walking. “Some of those walk trips are likely to be taken away at the shorter end, and some of those car trips are those at the long end,” said Taylor, who also serves as director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin. Taylor said scooters could encourage the use of public transit by solving the so-called “last mile” problem. “There’s the West L.A. rail station that’s a 22-minute walk from me. … I took a scooter the other day, and it took me five minutes,” Taylor said.

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