Contributed Photo
Veo scooters and the riding boundaries slated for the pilot program.
Laura Glesby Photo
Alder Anna Festa: "Another mode of public transportation" is on its way.
Rent-per-ride e‑scooters are officially coming to New Haven in time for summer.
The Board of Alders voted Monday night to approve a contract between the city and the widespread e‑scooter company Veo, a private company that plans to set up an e‑scooter system across downtown New Haven and adjacent neighborhoods at no cost to the city.
The scooters, intended for riding in bike lanes, would be able to travel up to 15 miles per hour.
As Veo representative Jeff Hoover told the City Services and Environmental Policy Committee earlier in April, the company will set up geo-fencing technology in order to restrict scooter users from riding on the sidewalk. According to data from Veo, the company’s GPS is accurate within one foot and an enforcement speed of less than one second.
For an initial pilot, the scooters will be able to ride within downtown and some adjacent neighborhoods (namely East Rock, Dixwell, Dwight, Wooster Square, and around Yale New Haven Hospital). Scooter users can park (and stop getting charged for their rides) only in designated parking zones.
Each ride will cost a baseline of $1, plus about 40 cents per minute for the duration of the ride. Riders can purchase a monthly subscription in order to receive discounted rides, and a $5 subscription option will be available for SNAP recipients.
Read more about the proposed e‑scooter system here.
After a public presentation earlier this month, Veo provided alders with a more detailed picture of how the scooters have been used in Hartford, which launched a Veo e‑scooter system in August.
According to that data, Hartford Veo riders completed 96,168 rides since August.
More data from Veo about its Hartford riders indicate that:
• A quarter used Veo to connect to another form of public transit.
• 64 percent live in a household without a car.
• 68 percent have an annual household income below $50,000.
• 40 percent are students.
• 20 percent have a physical disability.
• 45 percent are Black, 42 percent are Latino, and 10 percent are white.
There have been 10 reported safety issues, including five entailing injuries. The severity of those injuries was not specified. (The presentation notes that in that same period, Hartford saw 1,124 car crashes.)
At Monday’s Board of Alders meeting, East Rock Alder Anna Festa, who chairs the City Services and Environmental Policy Committee, spoke in favor of the agreement.
She called attention to the safety features built into the system. “The app has a lot of fancy items to it,” she said, including “keeping the miles-per-hour to 15” and “protecting sidewalks.”
In the end, she said, “the city will be able to offer another mode of public transportation downtown” through the e‑scooter system.
The alders unanimously voted to approve the contract. Those voting in support included Westville Alder Amy Marx, who had initially been skeptical of the proposal.
After the meeting, Marx said that the data from Hartford helped persuade her to be fully on board with the scooter proposal.
She also said that the safety features built into Veo’s system — such as the 15 miles-per-hour cap, the sidewalk-riding restriction, and a local decision to restrict scooter riding on school properties — convinced her to support the initiative.
“We have scooters” that are “unregulated” riding around the city already, she said, positing that Veo would be a safer alternative.
The scooter program follows the return of a bike share program to New Haven starting last September, and the launch of a government-subsidized rideshare-style system called Via earlier this month.