A humanoid robot walking next to fake grass in Wuhan, China

“Micromobility” refers to a diverse set of transportation modes that, at least on the ground, fall somewhere between traveling by foot and traveling by car: “bicycles, scooters, electric-assist bicycles (e-bikes), electric scooters (e-scooters), and other small, lightweight, wheeled conveyances.”[1] Within this broad scope, micromobility policy often focuses specifically on vehicles that are partially or fully motorized or on shared systems of vehicles that are physically dispersed in a community and made available to users through an online platform.

The plethora of new terms—micromobility, mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), e-scooter, and so on—contributes to a myopic view that micromobility itself is novel. But these terms join many others, from “vulnerable road users” to “alternative modes,” in describing forms of mobility that have been literally and metaphorically at the margins of the US transportation system for well over a century.

Many of the vehicles themselves have an even longer history. In 1879, a local reporter lamented that a “woman pushing a baby carriage in front of her is as dangerous as seven roller-skaters and four velocipede riders combined.” In 1885, another prematurely declared that, “[t]o the credit of our people,” “the roller-skating craze is dying out.” By 1897, velocipedes had evolved into modern bicycles, and their riders—a “vast, modern, rapidly growing power”—were credited with electing Chicago’s new mayor. The bike afforded many people, and especially women, a freedom of movement that was never before available to them—and inspired contempt from others. The “cycling craze” was in full swing.

Yet “what had seemed like a revolution in 1890 had become an artifact of an earlier era by 1905.” Attention quickly shifted to motorized transport on the ground and, as the history of the Wright Cycle Company suggests, the sky. Although motorized scooters, including some of the electric variety, also made their debut, automobiles came to dominate US roads. (And the shared transport epitomized by the streetcar declined accordingly.)

This domination was not accidental. Automobile proponents successfully sought to transform streets from a place for people to a place for cars. Pedestrians became “jaywalkers.”[2] Local car dealers spoke “of waging a campaign against the practice of children roller skating on the street.” What is now described as micromobility accordingly moved to the physical and policy margins. These modes have since been marked by two key tensions: competition with motor vehicles for space on the street, and competition among themselves for the remaining space at the curb and on the sidewalk—the literal and metaphoric margins of our streets.

These modes are numerous. On streets or on sidewalks, bicycles and roller skates have been joined by inline skates, skateboards, kick scooters, recumbent bicycles, party bikes, tricycles, pedicabs, go-karts, remote-controlled toy cars, shopping carts, Segways, hoverboards, mopeds, seated scooters, electric and electric-assist bicycles, dirt bikes, golf carts, neighborhood electric vehicles, autocycles, horse-drawn carriages, various types of farm equipment, a variety of mobility assistance devices, and now delivery robots—to name just a few. (And, while not “vehicles,” pets and livestock are also present on streets and sidewalks.)

Jurisdictions in the United States have addressed these modes in a piecemeal fashion that has produced both internal and external inconsistencies. If they are expressly referenced, these modes are generally shoehorned into state vehicle codes that focus on conventional automobiles. (Indeed, some states codify their rules of the road—even those addressing pedestrians and bicycles—in a title on “motor vehicles.”)

States variously and discretely define bicycles and an assortment of motorized devices including electric bicycles, low-speed vehicles, golf carts, electric personal assistive mobility devices, electrically motorized boards, mopeds, motorized scooters, motor-driven cycles, motorcycles, “play vehicles,” “toy vehicles,” and—most recently—“personal delivery devices.”

Some of these categories are strikingly specific. For example, the category generally though not exclusively termed “electric personal assistive mobility devices” is the product of extensive lobbying by Segway. Accordingly, while definitions for these devices use generic language, they effectively describe only Segways. Later, many of the states that expressly regulated e-scooters created new e-scooter definitions rather than broaden their Segway definitions.

These various devices are not necessarily “motor vehicles”—or even “vehicles”—under state codes. Persons with physical disabilities using “wheelchairs and manually-powered mobility aids” and, in many cases, the motorized equivalents, are generally considered pedestrians. The legal classification of bicycles has occupied legal scholars for well over a century and has not produced consistent results.

In New York, a bicycle is not a “vehicle.” In Wisconsin, a bicycle (including an electric bicycle) is a “vehicle” but not a “motor vehicle,” a “motor bicycle” is both a “bicycle” and a “motor vehicle,” and a “snowmobile, an all-terrain vehicle, a utility terrain vehicle, an electric scooter, and an electric personal assistive mobility device” qualify as both a “vehicle” and “motor vehicle” “only for purposes made specifically applicable by statute.” In Oregon, an “electric personal assistive mobility device” is a vehicle (except when it isn’t) but not a motor vehicle (except when it is), and its user is treated as a bicyclist when on a roadway and as a pedestrian when on a sidewalk. (And Oregon also defines a “crosswalk” as a “portion of the roadway” rather than a portion of the sidewalk.)

These classifications are generally shortcuts for imposing substantive legal requirements. Federal law specifies that certain e-bikes are to be regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) rather than by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Under state law, a motor vehicle (or its driver) might be subject to titling, registration, insurance, and licensing requirements that a mere device (or its user) would not be. (Language varies by state: New York, for example, uses the term “vehicle” to mean “motor vehicle.”)

Similarly, the rules of the road might apply differently to pedestrian, bicyclist, or motorist. In Wisconsin, for example, the rider of a bicycle or electric bicycle must follow all the rules of the road, including a small set of provisions specific to bicycles (which are “vehicles” but not “motor vehicles”), whereas the rider of an e-scooter must follow only 58 enumerated sections or subsections of the rules of the road—in each case unless a provision by its “express terms appl[ies] only to motor vehicles or” by its “very nature would have no application” to the device in question.

Whether explicitly or implicitly, these various provisions functionally determine whether and where a micromobility device may even be used. For example, at one point South Carolina regulators informally concluded that an e-scooter is a motor vehicle, must therefore be registered, yet cannot be registered, and therefore cannot be used on public roads, including crosswalks. (Conversely, for many years mopeds in the state escaped much of this regulation.)

Wisconsin expressly prohibits so-called “play vehicles”—“a coaster, skate board, roller skates, sled, toboggan, unicycle or toy vehicle upon which a person may ride” but not “in-line skates or electric scooters”—on roadways other than at crosswalks. (And so while both rollerbladers and rollerskaters are “vulnerable highway users,” only the latter are expressly barred from public roads.) Many states prohibit “obstructions” on roads. Philadelphia expressly prohibits “rid[ing] a scooter, roller skates, or skateboard” on any public sidewalk.

These examples suggest the panoply of ways that jurisdictions restrict micromobility on facilities held open to the public. (This wording is deliberate, as some state vehicle codes apply not only to public roads but to certain private roads and parking facilities.) Against a background presumption of legality, a given device might nonetheless be banned on sidewalks and crosswalks, on pedestrian plazas, on bike paths, on dedicated bike lanes, on roadway shoulders and curbsides, on neighborhood streets, on major roads, or on freeways—or, classically, “in the park.” Newer manifestations of micromobility are not fundamentally different than the varied modes that jurisdictions have excluded or marginally embraced for decades.