E-scooter and e-bike share program launches in Waterloo Region

Today is the day you can grab one of 500 e-bikes or e-scooters at locations around the region until the end of October.

The scooters and bikes will work with an app which will handle payment and provide a Q-R code allowing riders access the equipment.

The new share program ran by Neuron Mobility, has already received an endorsement from Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe.

Speaking with CityNews 570 McCabe said the new program will provide increased mobility for citizens looking for alternative transportation options.

“I think it will be a great benefit for people who now won’t have to buy a car or a second car. It increases access to mobility and micro mobility which I think will be the big game changer now and in the years to come.”

McCabe said she has tested out the new scooters herself noting the scooters ability to reach of a speed of 25 km/h.

The program is running in Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge and the e-scooters and e-bikes are now available at 150 locations.

McCabe said these locations will include areas around the University of Waterloo, Wilfried Laurier University, the uptown core and key transit nodes.

Prior to the launching of program concerns were raised on the safety of e-scooters and e-bikes mixing with pedestrians and vehicles.

McCabe headed off these concerns though, by noting some of the new safety features built into the scooters and bikes by Neuron Mobility.

“One of the biggest differences with the e-scooters that Neuron is providing is that they are geo-fenced, meaning they will shutdown if you take them on to the sidewalk.”

She added that when it comes to the roadways collisions between e-scooters and e-bikes are drastically lower when compared to amount of collisions between vehicles.