It's Time To Reframe The Bike/Scooter Debate

We keep having one-off, divisive debates about bikes and scooters. But the real issue is how to accommodate "intermediate modes" (vehicles that go 10-15 mph for a mile or two) in a system that's not designed for them.

1 minute read

August 27, 2019, 1:00 PM PDT

By William Fulton


Scooter and Bike Share

Alexander Oganezov / Shutterstock

Everybody either loves or hates bikes or scooters. But these one-off debates aren't doing any good. In this blog from the Kinder Institute's Urban Edge, urbanist Bill Fulton says the real question is how to accommodate what he calls "intermediate modes" -- vehicles that go 10-15 mph, that people use for a mile or two in dense urban areas. There's clearly a need to provide rights-of-way for such vehicles -- but we've created a binary system that accommodates cars and (to a lesser extent) pedestrians without making any room for this "third way" of urban transportation.

Tuesday, August 27, 2019 in Urban Edge

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