by Rebeka Ewusie

Take a walk through the University of Maryland, and you’ll see students trudging through McKeldin Mall with backpacks on, bike riders weaving through the crowds, and some people on e-scooters speeding past. 

UMD has partnered with micromobility company Veo to provide e-scooters and e-bikes to UMD students. Students can ride the e-bikes and e-scooters by unlocking them on the Veo app. Both cost $1 to unlock and 20 or 25 cents per minute to use, respectively.

Matthew Lischin, a junior computer science major, said that the scooters are convenient for doing recreational things, and are making an impact on the environment. 

On weekends, Lischin uses the scooters, rather than Shuttle-UM or a car, something he said is “definitely decreasing the carbon footprint around the area.”

Some UMD students are so enthusiastic about using e-scooters that they have bought one. 

“Using a scooter helps me get around to class a lot easier. I have two classes back to back,” Domenic Bongiovanni, a senior information science major, said. “I would not be able to make the walk in 10 minutes.”

The scooters come in handy for Bongiovanni and his roommate, Jason Wang, a junior computer science major since they live in the Varsity — on the other side of Baltimore Avenue. They have a long way to class.

The e-scooters and e-bikes aren’t only convenient, but they could help campus, junior civil engineering major Ethan Cosgrove said.

“If everyone had a scooter instead of a car, I would say that campus would be a lot safer to begin with,” he said. “And there wouldn’t be as much traffic around campus too.”

Cara Fleck, the assistant director for marketing and communications at DOTS, said the scooter are part of the university’s sustainability mission.

“Providing campus with micromobility options is one way that DOTS encourages the campus community to commute sustainably,” Cara Fleck, the assistant director for marketing and communications at DOTS, wrote in an email.

Veo gained more than 1000 riders at UMD between October 2019 and October 2020, Fleck wrote in an email. In October 2019, 20,650 UMD students rode the scooters, but by October 2020 21,764 students took advantage of the scooters. 

“Once I saw how fast my roommate was getting around compared to me walking everywhere, I figured that it was going to be worth it” to buy an e-scooter, Bongiovanni said.

Featured image: An e-scooter parked on the sidewalk near Francis Scott Key Hall