Ridership steadies as Columbus fine-tunes micromobility deal
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Usage of rentable scooters and bikes is stabilizing in Columbus, but the city and its partners are still trying to make their presence on streets and sidewalks less disruptive.
Why it matters: Cities like Columbus encourage the alternatives to car travel, but are still grappling with safety and logistics.
State of play: Ridership dropped between 2024 and 2025 after the city entered into an exclusivity agreement with a pair of vendors.
- It's up slightly compared to last year, but there are still kinks to be worked out.
Catch up quick: Until the beginning of 2025, micromobility companies offered shared device services with little accountability.
- A five-year agreement made Veo and Spin Columbus' exclusive operators, also establishing fines, new rules and a revenue sharing agreement that made more fiscal sense for the city.
- This replaced the likes of Lime, Bird and CoGo bicycles.
In the first year, results were mixed.
- Riders liked the new options, and Columbus leaders felt the agreements gave them more power to enforce rules.
- But total trips on all devices dropped 19%. People still complained about them littering the public right-of-way, and vendors didn't follow through on promises to distribute their fleets to different neighborhoods.
This year, ridership appears to be holding steady or slightly improving.
- The city logged about 386,000 trips through July compared to about 370,000 through that point last year, mobility and parking division administrator Justin Goodwin tells Axios.
📍 Zoom in: Goodwin says "the biggest change" has been adjusting the usage restrictions in the Short North.
- For years, the city had "a complete no-ride zone policy" for that area.
- This summer, it's experimented with a "more nuanced solution" that allows for riding on High Street but not on sidewalks. Goodwin says officials will continue tweaking.
The intrigue: Veo's seated scooters were the breakout star of the program last year, and overall usage has continued shifting toward devices with seats and away from stand-up scooters.
Friction point: The same old issue still plagues the industry — discarded scooters are annoying and in the way.
- Goodwin says "good progress" has been made, but the city and companies are still working to add corrals and tighten requirements around devices blocking sidewalks and ADA access.
The big picture: Likely more impactful than any micromobility issue is the city's Bike Plus plan, approved at the end of 2024.
- That plan resulted in nearly 16 miles of built or in-progress bike lanes last year.
- The city's longest protected bike lane opened along 4th Street this year.