E-bikes are everywhere. Can we make them safer?
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 3 January 2024
⏱️ 15 minutes
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Summary
They're faster, heavier and more dangerous than ever. But can we share the road with them safely? As micromobility devices continue to multiply, especially in urban areas, we look at ways to accommodate them that will keep all of us safer. Stefanie Seskin, Director of Policy and Practice at the National Association of City Transportation Officials joins The Excerpt to talk about how we can get this right.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to USA Today's The Excerpt, ad free right now. |
| 0:05.0 | Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery app. |
| 0:08.0 | Hello and |
| 0:15.0 | this is a special episode of the excerpt. |
| 0:17.0 | Today is Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024, and this is a special episode of the excerpt. observed. |
| 0:25.0 | The pandemic supercharged a lot in the way of tech adaptation, most notably in delivery tech greatly expanding that workforce and with that |
| 0:35.2 | came the proliferation of e-bikes these electric vehicles are now everywhere in |
| 0:39.9 | urban areas they're on the roads and they're on the sidewalks and they're faster |
| 0:43.7 | heavier and more dangerous than ever. How do we harness the convenience that |
| 0:48.3 | comes with e-bikes while avoiding the risks? Here to help me dig into that question I'm joined now by Stephanie |
| 0:53.8 | Seskin, Director of Policy and Practice at the National Association of |
| 0:58.8 | City Transportation Officials. Stephanie, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. |
| 1:04.0 | So let's start by talking about some stats, specifically accidents and deaths. |
| 1:08.0 | E-bike riders are not only the cause of some collisions, they are oftentimes the victims too. |
| 1:14.7 | Do cities like New York City have the infrastructure to accommodate an increasing number |
| 1:19.7 | of these micro mobility devices that are now sharing the road with other motorized vehicles, pedal bikes, and pedestrians. |
| 1:27.0 | So I think on the whole, cities know what they need to do to get there, but do they have that infrastructure now? The answer is probably no. In New York City, the Department of Transportation has taken steps to widen bike lanes where possible and otherwise add space and |
| 1:46.0 | visibility to these spaces where we expect people to be using slightly faster |
| 1:51.5 | bikes e-bikes and e-scooters, and other types of sort of small things with |
| 1:56.5 | wheels, as we call them at Nachto. But it takes years sometimes to get a project from start to finish and that process can take even longer when you start thinking about community engagement and other types of tradeoffs. |
| 2:11.0 | So I think cities are really, they know what they need to do but |
| 2:14.4 | getting there is a little challenging right now. |
... |
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