The Eternal City is switching to faster, greener mobility options, but how safe are they?
I wasn’t out of breath when I started pedaling thanks to the softly whirring electric motor that drove me past the rose garden to the right and the Circus Maximus to the left. The Palatin’s cinnamon-colored stacks glowed in the fading sunlight.
It was May 2020 and it was Rome’s first Saturday outside of lockdown. I was just outside and having a lot of fun driving around town in my modern car: a shiny Uber e-bike.
The e-bikes came to the city in late 2019, just a few months before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fleets of stand-up electric scooters arrived between waves of lockdown. There are now collections of colorful micromobility offers on every street corner.
After my first happy ride around town, a few weeks later I had another not-so-happy ride on an Uber e-bike. A bus came extremely close on one side and some crater-sized potholes on the other. It took my nerves (and tailbone) a few days to recover.
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I also had a harrowing experience on one of the e-scooters when a car in front of me turned off an intersection and my fingers slipped off the handbrake and I hurled at the car and its confused driver. Both of these cases made me want to start the scooter in the sun and never ride one again.
Based on these anecdotes, you might be wondering whether electric micromobility is a good or bad thing in Rome. On the one hand, the historic center is commonly referred to as the “open-air museum”, which makes a tour from the back of an e-bike or e-scooter ideal. On the other hand, the streets are full of patchy pavement, loose cobblestone, wild traffic, and parked cars like drivers are playing a city-wide game of Tetris.
Are these new modes of transport even compatible with an ancient city? Is It Safe to Use Sharing Options Amid a Global Pandemic? And how sustainable is electric micromobility anyway?
Before you step off the plane onto an e-bike or e-scooter, let’s find out.
First of all, why Rome?
Before COVID-19 spread to Italy, the Uber e-bikes (which were acquired by Lime in May 2020) were launched to reduce traffic and make the city more sustainable.
Haya Verwoord Douidri, Vice President Europe, Middle East and Africa for Superpedestrian, operator of LINK e-scooter, see Rome as a city ripe for electric micromobility. “There are a lot of traffic jams from motor vehicles and millions of people try to drive through narrow streets. This creates a real need for active modes of transport (like bicycles) and on-demand, low-carbon micromobility (like shared e-bikes and shared e-scooters), ”she said in a written comment.
According to Marialisa Nigro, Associate Professor of Transportation Engineering at Roma Tre University, the pandemic has also contributed to the “huge boom” of micromobility options in Rome. “From the moment the lockdown began, public transport was viewed as dangerous by some passengers during a public health crisis due to the crowds and travel conditions, so cities began looking for alternative mobility options,” explains Nigro. This led to more and more micro-mobility companies settling in the city.
How Safe Are Shared Micromobility Vehicles During COVID-19?
According to Ms. Douidri, the micromobility industry increased its hygiene measures “across the board” during the pandemic. Some companies report that they sanitize their vehicles twice a day. lime also recommends wiping the vehicle before driving, wearing gloves while driving and washing or disinfecting your hands after driving.
How safe are e-bikes and e-scooters on Roman roads?
For Professor Nigro, there are several aspects to consider when discussing electric micromobility and safety, but above all the infrastructure.
City officials seem to agree. Before 2020 there weren’t many dedicated cycle paths in Rome, but in the spring of last year the city decided to take measures to create 150 km of new ones. A recent announcement from Pietro Calabrese, Deputy Mayor and City Councilor in charge of urban transport have increased that number to 500. Thanks to this new initiative, bike paths are being created across the city.
A bigger plan for sustainable mobility in Rome has also been in the works for years, as well as that GRASP, or Grande Raccordo Annulare Delle Bici, a ring road with lanes for micro-mobility vehicles that circumnavigate the city.
Which rules apply to driving e-bikes and e-scooters?
In Rome, drivers must be 14 years or older (although some companies must be 18 years old). Helmets are recommended for everyone, but they are only required for children 14-18 years old and you do not need a driver’s license.
If these laws seem to be absent, it is because they are. Fortunately there is a bill on the table that regulates insurance requirements, stipulates the wearing of helmets and reflective vests and sets stricter speed and age limits.
As the situation evolves, before driving, be sure to check the safety information available on each company’s app or their website to ensure you’re complying with local laws.
How sustainable are e-bikes and e-scooters?
According to Professor Nigro, at the local level, using electric micromobility over cars reduces greenhouse gas emissions in cities, which is of course a good thing.
“But,” she said, “in order to effectively calculate the impact at the emission level, we have to look at the vehicles from the ‘well-to-wheel’.” That means taking into account the environmental impact over the entire life cycle of the vehicles, from production to for removal. Nigro added that the energy source used to charge the batteries in e-bikes and e-scooters must be sustainable in order to be truly “green”.
So what’s the greenest way to get around Rome? Public transport. “It is considered the most sustainable option because more people are concentrated in a smaller space and therefore less consumed [of resources]”Said Professor Nigro.
Molly Fitzpatrick
What does the future of electric micromobility look like in Rome?
For Bruno Monardo, researcher and associate professor of urban and regional planning at La Sapienza University in Rome, urban planning is about enhancing the quality of life for city dwellers, regardless of whether they live in the historic center or on the outskirts. He sees the change to micromobility as an opportunity not only to travel to cities more safely and sustainably, but also to beautify them. Monardo sees the potential to transform cycle paths into extensive networks that connect public transport hubs, interrupted by green spaces and gardens.
This is a city that I would like to see.
After experiencing the good, the bad and the bumps with the e-bikes and e-scooters, I am happy to report that I now regularly ride them thanks to the new bike paths and the fact that I ride more comfortably roman traffic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about major changes in Rome in terms of safe and sustainable mobility. The transition to a 100% micro-mobility friendly city won’t happen overnight, but I think we all agree that we are on the right (bike) path.
