It’s been almost six months since Skip launched in San Francisco to bring reliable, safe, and sustainable transportation to our hometown. With the sun starting to shine and a possible expansion to the SFMTA scooter pilot scheduled later this month, we dug into how and why our riders use Skip to get around The City.
What did we find? A few things that surprised us! For instance, the vast majority of riders (82 percent) feel safest in the bike lane, but only 18 percent always stay off the sidewalk. Knowing riders feel the same way about sidewalk riding as we do only underscores the need for more connected and protected bike lanes — especially when paired with our data showing scooter demand in San Francisco often isn’t where bike lanes exist.
Our survey also confirmed a key belief: scooters replace car trips. Our data shows that 69 percent of Skip riders use scooters to replace ride-hailing trips, 31 percent leave their car at home, and 19 percent replace taxi rides. Scooters replacing short car trips frees up space on crowded streets and gets people where they need to go more quickly and easily. As San Francisco moves into its second half of the pilot and availability becomes more consistent based on steady demand, San Franciscans will be able to more reliably use scooters as part of their daily routines. Ideally, this will lead to scooters being more fully integrated with public transportation, as 61 percent of Skip riders use public transportation in their day-to-day lives.
With riding part of a daily habit, we’ll see folks helping to establish best scooter routes, learn where to park, and remember to bring their helmet.
To get us all where we want to go as a city, we’re working closely with SFMTA, partnering with People Protected Bike Lanes to advocate for bike lane infrastructure, and providing free helmets both online and in person at Sunday Streets across the city this summer. If you’re interested in getting involved in the state of transportation in San Francisco, including how scooters can better operate within the community, we invite you to attend SFMTA’s Community Meetings. And if you want to know more about the results of our SF rider survey, check out our infographics below.
