(Image: City of Seattle)
As it learns how to live and thrive with a continued surge in use — accompanied by surging injuries, infrastructure costs, and legal costs, Seattle is asking riders about its growing fleet of micromoblity options like scooters and e-bikes in a survey currently underway.
You can take the SDOT 2026 Bike & Scooter Share Survey through September 27th.
Rental bike and scooter usage in Seattle reached record levels, logging over 10.5 million trips in 2025, a 60% jump compared to the 6.3 million rides recorded in 2024, according to Seattle Department of Transportation program reporting. Fleet operations are overwhelmingly dominated by Lime, which captures more than 90% of the local market share, with trips primarily clustered in dense corridors such as Downtown, Belltown, the U District, and Capitol Hill. SDOT trip telemetry shows the service operates almost entirely as a short-hop, last-mile solution, averaging roughly 1.0 mile per ride, while standing and seated electric scooters have far outpaced standard pedal-assist e-bikes in popularity.
The survey gets into that with questions about the types of rides you choose — and why you choose them.
It also asks about some of the other key issues around the city’s rental transportation economy including parking. Seattle has installed 200 dedicated bike and scooter corrals in commercial and transit zones, frequently placing them near crosswalks to simultaneously “daylight” intersections and improve sightlines for traffic.
Meanwhile, the survey only scratches the surface when it comes to injuries.
Trauma data from Harborview Medical Center and clinical updates from the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center reveal that severe injuries have climbed sharply alongside ridership, rising from 29 admissions in 2020 to 163 serious trauma cases in 2024.
KIRO reports the totals leapt to 252 serious cases last year — with six recorded deaths.
Trauma surgeons report a substantial rise in traumatic brain injuries, facial fractures, and blunt abdominal lacerations caused by handlebar impacts, compounded by helmet non-use rates around 60% to 70%. While most incidents involve falls caused by roadway defects, steep terrain, or wet streetcar tracks, motor vehicle collisions account for the vast majority of critical life-threatening injuries.
In 2022, the King County Board of Health voted to repeal helmet requirements as studies revealed that police enforcement disproportionately targeted Black riders and individuals experiencing homelessness, while serving as a major deterrent to use.
City of Seattle is mixed. Under city law, providers like Lime must carry private liability policies and indemnify the city, mostly insulating taxpayers from direct payouts when a crash involves private scooter equipment. However, when incidents stem from hazardous street design or roadway maintenance, the city faces serious liabilities. Beyond settlements, public costs also pile up through city attorney defense hours and capital expenditures required to re-engineer hazardous corridors.
The survey only has a question or two directly around safety but does attempt to get at the key issue around helmet use: Why, given all of the above, do you still refuse to wear one?
Subscribe to CHS to help hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month — or choose your level of support