Massachusetts legislators leading transportation policy are intent on addressing the rapid rise in recent years of “micromobility” devices — such as scooters and electric bikes — and their safety risks to riders and pedestrians.
Top state officials have grown increasingly concerned with the speedy, nimble devices and have called for a crackdown after a 13-year-old Stoneham boy was killed just before Thanksgiving. The boy and his electric dirt bike collided with a car.
The proliferation of delivery drivers on scooters and large, reckless groups of motorbike riders in cities has also driven calls for better transportation laws or enforcement.
The microvehicles also drive along sidewalks and rail trails.
“You look in both directions, and there’s someone going 30 mph when my daughter is [riding her bike],” said State Rep. Jim Arciero, D-2nd Middlesex, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation. “That’s something I regularly see. The post-pandemic economy, with delivery services, with individuals getting around, it’s completely changed.”
Arciero spoke Tuesday alongside State Sen. Brendan Crighton, D-3rd Essex, his transportation committee co-chair, at a panel organized by the State House News Service publication MASSterlist to discuss the state’s transportation needs and funding challenges.
The legislators each cited improved micromobility laws as among their top priorities and said a “Special Commission on Micromobility” they established in April would issue recommendations as soon as next month.
“Obviously, anyone that’s driven on our streets or walked on our sidewalks, you see all these new vehicles around micromobility: e-scooters, e-bikes, skateboards, unicycles, these vehicles that seem out of sci-fi movies,” Crighton said.
The challenge, he said, would be finding a balance between safety and people’s varied transportation needs in cities and rural areas.
Standing with other top legislative leaders after the crash in Stoneham last month, Gov. Maura Healey said officials should explore “whatever needs to be done to make sure things like this don’t ever happen again.”
“First of all, it’s a horrible tragedy for a kid that got killed in an accident,” state House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano said alongside the governor. “What we have begun to look at is making sure that the rules that are in place are enforced. And if they have to be expanded, our training has to be insisted upon, that we begin to license these folks to ride these bicycles.”
The state aims to regulate small transportation devices based on speed, said Arciero, who sits on the micromobility commission alongside Crighton.
Lawmakers may establish regulations based on different tiers of vehicle speed, he said. The regulations could also allow some communities to enact stricter microtransit laws depending on their needs.
In his suburban district near the New Hampshire border, Arciero said he had seen increasing numbers of young people riding devices without helmets upwards of 30 or 35 mph.
“I’ve seen my daughter and I almost get clipped on a rail trail. I’ve seen young people get hurt who shouldn’t be driving certain things,” he said. “I’ve seen this exponential sort of increase of these micromobility vehicles since 2021 … We need to get our arms around that and improve things on a safety measure and to regulate the speed.”
