E-Scooters See Record Numbers of Rides in Eastern Queens and the Bronx, and a Mix of Support and Scorn from Residents and Officials

Evening passersby in front of a fleet of Lime e-scooters parked on College Point Boulevard near Citi Field in Flushing, Queens.

Nicholas Gordon

Electronic scooters are having a moment in the Bronx and Queens. It is a moment both celebratory and fraught, with soaring ridership and sobering pushback.

The New York City Department of Transportation Shared E-Scooter Program has seen record ridership since its launch in the East Bronx in August of 2021. As the program expanded into Eastern Queens in 2024, the three companies in the pilot program—Lime, Bird, Veo—logged more than two million total rides for the year. Lime alone reported over 1.1 million trips through June 2025, double the number from the same period the previous year.

Yet even as ridership climbs, New Yorkers are divided on th