The other day, the Wedge Live online periodical tweeted out this amusing chart showing technology adoption rates:
It was funny and made me chuckle, but then a week or so later I saw a report from a consulting group that offered a literal version of the same kind of data:
The report was a study released by San Francisco-based Populous, and it really glosses over its methodology, so take it with a few shakers of salt. But inside you see a few charts with some survey results separated out by income and gender, showing “positive” or “negative” feelings about the new shared e-scooters.
And the survey says:
The Wired magazine piece on the report, by Aarian Marshall, has this to say about the breakdown:
The study, which surveyed 7,000-person in 10 cities, found that over half the population in every place studied had a “positive opinion” of scooters in the period between May and July of this year. In some cities—Atlanta, Austin, Denver, Chicago, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles–over 70 percent of residents feel good about scooters. (In San Francisco, though, only 52 percent of respondents supported the things, which might explain all the feces.
Among income brackets, those making between $25,000 to $50,000 a year are the most into the idea, and those making above $200,000 are the least. (One theory, from UC Berkeley transportation researcher Susan Shaheen: lower income urbanites who can’t afford cars appreciate the mobility of scooters, and wealthier residents who do drive find them a street-clogging nuisance.)
It’ll be interesting to see whether these scooters prove to be popular or not in the Twin Cities. I doubt they will be widely used, but in combination with other sharing and “micro mobility” approaches, the cumulative impact could be meaningful.