Micromobility revolt in California

In early this week, I came across an interesting article published on CityLab that discusses the potential impacts of Assembly Bill 1112 (AB 1112). This controversial bill discussed in Sacramento aims to limit the power of city governments in shaping micro-mobility regulations applicable to e-scooters and dockless bikes. For example, if AB 1112 became law, it could prohibit municipalities from requiring mobility providers to share customers' trip data with a local authority. Moreover, a city government could be banned to mandate equal distribution of the service in disadvantaged communities. The current draft of the bill says;

The bill would prohibit the sharing of individual trip data, except as provided by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The bill would prohibit a local authority from imposing an unduly restrictive requirement on a provider of shared mobility devices, including a requirement that is more restrictive than those applicable to riders of personally owned similar transportation devices.(B-1112 Shared mobility devices: local regulation)

The author of the CityLab article also warns that this motion of the state legislature could go further by using the words "banning any unduly restrictive" local regulations. In the future,this language could be used by mobility providers to remove caps on the total number of scooters and bikes deployed within a jurisdiction. Will Californian residents be happy with the streets flooded by mobility devices? Definitely, no.

But why does this happen? The rationale is the same as the case of TNCs: Companies are lobbying for state-based limitation on local power (Preemption). It is reported that Uber, Lyft, and Bird have already manifested their support for AB 1112 in order to stop cities from collecting their customers' data. These companies collectively argue that most policy questions faced cities now can be solved with aggregated travel data; thus, the current local governments' attempt to collect individual data unnecessarily risks consumers' privacy. While this argument makes sense from an end users' perspective (no one wants to be monitored by the government), "this would effectively kill Los Angeles' groundbreaking digital tool, Mobility Data Specifications."

Fortunately, this bill is still under discussion in Sacramento. Despite the limited time we have (mobility companies have been investing huge amounts of money in pushing this bill forward), we have to think about which level of governments should manage emerging personal mobility devices in public spaces so that cities can not only utilize our limited urban spaces more efficiently but also enhance mobility equity. Of course, it is hard to find the best answer that makes both the public and private sector happy. But it is worth a try if we want to create a better place to live for all.