By Joseph Morales

A large portion of New York City’s population lives in NYCHA Housing across the five boroughs. NYCHA is home to 339,000 residents or 1 out of 16 New Yorkers across 335 developments. As NYCHA’s developments are located in a variety of neighborhoods across the city, each public housing complex in the city has its own unique mobility needs. While many NYCHA developments are located near immense public transit options or are even located in some of the city’s largest transit hubs, others are located far from the subway or other quality transit options. Thus, New Yorkers in some NYCHA developments are forced to make longer public transit trips with more transfers to either certain bus routes or the subway. Other NYCHA developments are home to a high density of delivery workers, many for a rideshare company such as UberEats who need a mobility device such as a car or bicycle to make deliveries. These and many other transportation needs can be addressed through convenient and reliable micro mobility options such as the availability of e-bikes and e-scooters. These options are generally used for short trips which could be anything from a trip to the subway station, a local deli or for pure recreation.  With the plethora of green space and side streets around most NYCHA developments micro mobility has already been a major success in many areas. Citi Bike has stations across many NYCHA developments within its service areas and has a program where NYCHA residents and New Yorkers receiving SNAP benefits can ride Citi Bike for a discounted price of $5 a month. According to an article on Citi Bike’s blog, these users use Citi Bike at about double the rate of full-fare users, indicating how beneficial micro mobility can be for NYCHA residents. Many NYCHA residents also rely on e-bikes and e-scooters to get around.

Unfortunately for these residents, NYCHA has proposed banning e-bikes and e-scooters due to the risks of fires particularly caused by lithium-ion batteries. This would remove micro mobility options from thousands of residents, some of whom rely on micro mobility to work. While the desire to mitigate the risks of these potentially fatal fires is understandable, actions can and should be taken to make sure NYCHA residents still have access to safe, efficient and reliable micromobilty options based on their diverse mobility contexts.

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