Pause ... or expand dramatically?
The rentable e-scooter pilot program in Queens is extremely popular, with hundreds of thousands of rides in just six months — a mobility revolution that flies in the face of ongoing resistance from Queens elected officials who have called for the city-overseen program to be scrapped.
According to Lime, one of three companies operating scooters in eastern Queens, 32,000 customers took nearly 330,000 trips between the June launch and mid-December. And Bird, its competitor, told Streetsblog that its 12,544 unique riders took 132,930 scooter trips, averaging about one mile per trip.
Veo, the third company involved in the Queens pilot, did not provide Streetsblog with broken-down numbers for Queens alone, but if its fall statistics are in line with the other companies, the overall trip levels would be similar to the Department of Transportation's successful Bronx scooter pilot, which launched in August 2021.
In all, Lime said its devices served 1.8 million rides in the Bronx and Queens in 2024. Bird said its customers in the two boroughs had taken 529,563 rides, with roughly 40 percent starting or ending within 50 feet of a transit stop in the Flushing-to-JFK pilot area.
“Tens of thousands of people have come to rely on Lime to get around their neighborhoods in Queens and the Bronx," Nicole Yearwood, the company's senior manager of Government Relations, said in a statement. "Our e scooters have become part of daily life for over 145,000 people who have taken a Lime to connect to a bus or subway or Metro North or the LIRR, to get to work or to class, or to visit and support a local small business."
Alluding to recent agitation from Queens electeds, Yearwood said her company is always fine-tuning the program "to ensure that the amazing ridership we’re seeing is paired with continuous improvements in safe riding and proper parking."
Despite ridership numbers, Speaker Adrienne Adams has called for the DOT to "pause" the program, citing not first-hand knowledge by vague "constituent concerns" about "the safety hazards created when e-scooters are frequently left on sidewalks and streets, obstructing pedestrians and all road users."
All three companies said they are working on parking issues, but the numbers speak to a broadly popular and growing program. Lime, for example, said that total rides in the Bronx just in 2024 were close to the total number of rides in the Boogie Down from the 2021 launch through all of 2023, evidence of skyrocketing growth.
"East Bronx residents have come to think of Lime as public transportation," a company statement said.
And Bird spokesperson Austin Spademan said the company's total number of rides this year — 529,563 — were up about 23 percent over last year, though that figure includes the new Queens pilot.
Spademan added that the high percentage of trips that begin or end near transit indicate "we are an important last mile option for our riders to connect to transit."
For Veo, overall ridership in the two boroughs was up 29 percent, the company said. Interestingly, 74 percent of the company's customers said in a survey that they had reduced their car travel thanks to Veo, which helps reduce congestion in some very congested neighborhoods in Queens and the Bronx.
And because Veo's fleet includes sit-down scooters, 18 percent of its riders reported having a disability. And Veo customers say they take further trips — roughly 37 percent longer — on a sit-down scooter.
The Council press office sent over a statement that downplayed the soaring ridership numbers.
"Since the program’s inception, there have been e-scooters recklessly left on sidewalks and in front of homes, driveways, small businesses, senior centers, places of worship, and other community institutions in Southeast Queens," said the statement, attributed to a "Council spokesperson."
"The safety of neighborhood residents and equitable access to our streetscape are priorities for Speaker Adams and they should not be pitted against reported utilization. It is incumbent upon the Department of Transportation to prioritize better engagement with communities, resolve concerns, and hold these private companies accountable for addressing street safety issues."
The DOT did not respond to a request for comment.
