Skip to main content

Voting on 3 November? Get on a scooter

Roll to the Polls campaign encourages participation in US presidential election
By Ben Spencer October 9, 2020 Read time: 2 mins
Bird is among micromobility firms to join voting campaign (© Arne Beruldsen | Dreamstime.com)

The North American Bikeshare Association (Nabsa) is launching Roll to the Polls, an industry-wide campaign offering free or reduced-cost transportation to voters on the US election day.

Shared micromobility operators such as Bird, Movatic and PikeRide Colorado Springs will make bikes, scooters and ride-share services available to voters on 3 November. 

Nabsa claims many people who want to vote lack access to reliable transportation, pointing to a study by Pew Research Center in which 3% of Americans cited transportation problems as a barrier to voting in 2016.

According to Nabsa, 3% is representative of 4.6 million registered voters in 2020.

Sam Herr, executive director at Nabsa, says: "Not only does shared micromobility provide riders with the freedom of fun, sustainable transportation but it also plays a vital role in eliminating the transportation barrier that exists for millions of voters."

Nabsa has been encouraging alternative methods of voting in the wake of the coronavirus - such as absentee ballots - but insists many US states do not accept the pandemic as a reason for mail-in ballots. 

Roll to the Polls helps voters plan how to get to the polls in advance and find socially distant modes of transportation, the association adds. 

Other micromobility operators involved in the campaign include Chattanooga Bicycle Transit System, MoGo Detroit, Ride Report and Shift Transit.
 

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • How public transit improves quality of life
    June 29, 2022
    There are various reasons why Mobility as a Service is catching on more in Europe than the US – but there are still other ways in which access to mobility can be improved across the states, finds Gordon Feller
  • Better websites build smarter transport participation
    March 17, 2017
    Transport initiatives are gaining traction through well-designed websites. Four European smart transport-oriented websites have gained honours in the 2016 .eu Web Awards, an online competition inaugurated in 2014 to recognise the most impressive sites within the .eu internet domain in terms of their design and content. The four were among 15 finalists across all five categories of the scheme, giving the transport sector a high profile for its proactive use of sites as communications tools for driving major
  • Iomob searches for middle ground in Sweden
    July 15, 2020
    Does a MaaS ecosystem work best if it’s open or closed? A new project with Swedish regional transit agency Skånetrafiken might just answer that, write Boyd Cohen and Scott Shepard of Iomob
  • US caregivers get a Lyft
    April 16, 2020
    Ride-sharing company Lyft is offering free rides in the US to caregivers of homebound older adults during the Covid-19 crisis.