Seattle's Shared Micromobility Boom - Kim Pearson, Seattle DoT

Seattle has quietly become one of America’s biggest shared micromobility success stories.

In 2021, the city recorded roughly 2.3 million shared micromobility trips. By 2025, that had grown to 10.53 million trips, with another ~20% growth underway in 2026.

In this episode of the Micromobility Podcast, Prabin Joel Jones speaks with Kim Pearson, Shared Mobility Program Manager at the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), about what Seattle did differently—and what other cities can learn from it.

They unpack the city’s journey from becoming the first U.S. city to launch free-floating bike share in 2017 to today’s large-scale bike and scooter network.

Kim explains why protected bike infrastructure has probably been the single biggest driver of growth, alongside reliable vehicle availability, equity requirements, reduced fares, transit integration, and new vehicle formats such as seated scooters.

The conversation also covers Seattle’s reduced-fare program—which generated more than one million trips in 2025—the rapid adoption of seated scooters, performance-based fleet caps, Seattle’s hybrid approach to parking corrals, and how micromobility helped move tens of thousands of people during the World Cup.

If you work in cities, transportation, shared mobility, bike share, scooters, or urban planning, this is a detailed look at how a city can turn micromobility from a pilot program into a meaningful part of its transportation system.

Guest: Kim Pearson, Shared Mobility Program Manager, Seattle Department of Transportation
Host: Prabin Joel Jones, CEO, Micromobility Industries