Josh Hunter has been leading night rides on personal electric vehicles in Edmonton for five years, and there was a motley assortment of electric-powered scooters, bicycles, skateboards and unicycles gathered on a recent Friday evening at the Alberta Legislature grounds for an early season tour.
Billed as cheap and green transportation for commuters during the day, PEVs are becoming a popular, and highly social, leisure activity in Canadian cities after dark.
Hunter’s group — PEV Edmonton — doesn’t officially begin its season until June, but with a forecast of warm temperatures and clear skies, a couple of dozen riders were raring to go for an after-hours cruise through the city’s river valley pathways and streets.
“It’s like a modern-day biker group,” Hunter joked. “All age groups are allowed so long as you have a personal electric vehicle and a helmet. We do enforce helmets — it’s one of our major rules.”
Many of the machines on the group ride were personalized with colourful lights and mirrors, and their owners proudly noted the wattage of their motors. But not everyone rolling on a PEV in Edmonton on this Friday night was an aficionado.
Numerous groups of people on rental e-scooters, from companies such as Lime, Neuron and Bird, were also ambling through the city’s core, sightseeing without any particular destination in mind.
Habib Baalbaki and Zeinab Awada, recently married, said they were scooting together because it was a “fun date idea.”
“It’s like walking on steroids,” said Baalbaki, from Montreal, who said it was his first time on an e-scooter.
Kyson Fitzner, meanwhile, who was cruising with friends a few blocks east, said he liked riding at night for “the thrill and the adrenalin.”
“Do you want to see me jump a curb?” asked Fitzner, who was wearing an Edmonton Oilers jacket and a ball cap. He then demonstrated, gaining momentum on a sidewalk before using the sloped concrete curb at a driveway as a ramp to get a bit of air.
Companies that operate the rental e-scooter and e-bike programs in Canada say they don’t have much data on group riding, but note ridership is strong when the workday ends.
Anastasia Rewers-Kusiak of Bird says the company sees a strong uptake in ridership from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., and on weekends, from Friday to Sunday night.
Neuron’s head of corporate affairs in Canada, Isaac Ransom, says data shows between 20 and 25 per cent of trips on its e-scooters and e-bicycles are made during what he calls “the nighttime economy.” In Red Deer, Alta., he notes the company’s annual survey found that approximately half of users were riding for recreation.
Ransom said in some cities where Neuron operates, users can add up to five other users onto their account, which enables a rider to grab additional scooters or bikes for companions. And in cities that don’t yet have that feature, he said one in five users in their survey said they wanted it.
“Where people are riding recreationally, we saw that a lot during the COVID pandemic where it was something to do in the evening,” Ransom said.
“The appeal of getting on a scooter with friends and going to the same place at the same time, ending the trip at the same place, you know, is a real selling point for shared e-scooters.”
Other cities, such as Ottawa, Vancouver and Halifax, also have groups that post on social media about their after-hours e-vehicle rides.
Kara Dejong, who rides an e-bike on PEV Edmonton’s tours, said the group rides attract a fair bit of attention from motorists and pedestrians.
“People are smiling, they’re taking pictures. The looks on their faces are, ‘Wow, am I really seeing this?”‘ Dejong said.
Trevor Neufeld, who has been riding an e-scooter with PEV Edmonton for four years, said he’s even ridden in January, wearing a snowsuit. He started with a rental scooter, but his current ride costs $5,000. He has put another $1,000 into modifications.
“It’s a thing of passion. I look forward throughout the whole week to go ride on Fridays and Saturdays,” Neufeld said.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information said last year that e-scooter injuries are on the rise across the country. There was a 32 per cent increase in e-scooter hospitalizations in Canada over a one-year period, the data said, rising from 375 in 2022-2023 to 498 in 2023-2024.
Rules about where scooters are allowed to ride and how old you have to be to rent them also vary from city to city. Toronto doesn’t permit them at all.
Lime said in an email that it emphasizes safe riding behaviour, such as how to be visible while riding, and riding in protected bike lanes as much as possible. It said it also states in its terms and conditions that riding after drinking is not allowed, and people should take an Uber or public transit if impaired.
Neufeld said he wears knee and shin pads, and elbow pads are built into his motorcycle-style jacket.
“I’ve only ever fallen at around five kilometres [per hour] or less, doing stupid things like going down steep hills or going down steps,” he said.
Damon Spence, who was visiting Edmonton from Athabasca, Alta., and was zipping around the city’s downtown with friends on rental scooters, said he keeps aware of his surroundings and watches for traffic lights and stop signs.
“It’s become a weekly thing for us in the summers. We try to go out as much as possible,” Spence said.
“It’s cheap. I think it’s like $17 an hour, or something like that, so it’s not too bad.”
