E-bikes prove popular in Halifax while raising concerns for advocacy group

Halifax residents have been getting a lot of use out of e-scooters and e-bikes in the last month.

Bird Canada has brought 300 e-scooters and 200 e-bikes to the Halifax region and says in the first 20 days these devices have received more usage here than when the company first introduced them to other cities.

Austin Spademan with Bird Canada even says it’s “record breaking” in terms of initial usage.

“We have already clocked over 24,000 kilometers, which is crazy, and across 3,600 Haligonians have used our service. They are riding an average of 2.36 rides per rider,” says Spademan.

“I think it’s great to have more active transportation options,” says Alex Setchell, a Halifax resident.

Bird Canada, a Canadian company, has a goal of getting people out of their vehicles.

“Both e-scooters and e-bikes are important tools in the tool kits to give people compelling alternatives to either get straight from where they live to run errands within the community or more importantly connect more with other transit options to completely decouple from completely needing a car to get from point A to point B,” says Spademan.

Brynn Budden, public affairs advisor with the Halifax Regional Municipality, says the pilot projects for the e-scooters and e-bikes aim to provide mobility options to residents.

“The system is designed to be affordable and easy to use for both residents and visitors and will complement other existing modes of transportation including Halifax Transit,” says Budden.

Bird Canada hopes to grow north of Highway 102 and into Burnside, but for now they are taking things slow.

“We have entered a smaller operating area more, it mainly covers downtown and a few other main areas that are those flex flare zones that I mentioned that we built with the United Way. We are going to grow from here with fleet increases over time as the usage dictates that we could use more vehicles. We are going to do this in partnership with HR,” says Spademan.

Anyone can use them but there are rules.

“Definitely should be using the road and all the bike infrastructure, not the sidewalk. In fact, if you are riding on the sidewalk, we can tell,” says Spademan.

The devices have sensors that can detect if it’s in an area where it’s not permitted. They also automatically reduce their speed in designated slow zones.

There are consequences for riders who don’t follow the guidelines.

“We may give you an email as a rider saying, ‘Hey, you know, that’s not allowed and you might get in trouble for it so do not be riding on the sidewalks,’” says Spademan.

The CNIB Foundation feels those consequences are not enough, and it has concerned for visually-impaired people.

“CNIB has done a lot of advocacies nationwide with e-scooter companies as well as municipal officials and the issues seem to be persisting so I am planning on reaching out to the city to discuss the issue further,” says Shelley Adams, CNIB manager for Atlantic Canada.

Tara Niecamp, strategic leadership council co-chair with CNIB, feels not everyone is going to follow the rules.

“For those cases where the policy is not enough, there needs to be really strict penalties, whether that comes down to a financial penalty or revoking of the account for those that don’t follow the rules.” says Niecamp. “For individuals with low vision or who are blind, it’s not that easy. Walking, you may not see the device which means that you could trip and fall.”

Bird Canada says when they introduced these devices in Ottawa, they worked with groups like the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and have developed a lot of features to make their products less of a potential conflict.

“A lot of that revolves around that parking technology I mentioned, just making sure when our devices are parked that they are out of the public right of way,” says Spademan.

The CNIB wants people held accountable.

“The municipality needs to hold the e scooter companies accountable for that and in order to do that the municipality needs to have a system in place where they can track the e-scooters being improperly used,” says Niecamp. “When you are living with a disability, you are encountering barriers constantly and it is requiring a lot of mental energy even to advocate and report them.”

Some Halifax residents say they love the idea, but feel there are a few drawbacks.

“I love this idea of having more transportation options like that aren’t vehicles in the city but it was way too expensive and it cost about $15 just to get from the commons down to the waterfront and it was pretty direct and I didn’t have to wait a whole lot and also it’s not a comfortable ride,” says Shannon Kam.

“The cost goes up pretty quickly if you don’t think about it. It will be about $3 a minute sometimes, which is a lot, you know,” says Quinn Marnitz.

The municipality admits the project is still in the early stages so components like parking locations and sidewalk detection technologies are still being fine-tuned.

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