Night riders rev up for season on electric scooters

Josh Hunter has spent five years leading night rides on personal electric vehicles through Edmonton's streets and pathways, and with warm weather arriving, PEV Edmonton is preparing to launch its official season.

On a recent Friday evening at the Alberta Legislature grounds, a couple of dozen riders gathered with an assortment of custom-lit e-scooters, e-bikes, e-skateboards, and e-unicycles — machines outfitted with glowing accents and their owners proudly citing wattage specs.

"It's like a modern-day biker group," Hunter said. "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."

But PEV Edmonton isn't the only electric presence on city streets after dark. Rental fleets from companies like Lime, Neuron, and Bird have become a common sight, with riders using them for everything from commuting to casual evening sightseeing.

For Habib Baalbaki and Zeinab Awada, recently married visitors from Montreal, it was a novel date idea. "It's like walking on steroids," Baalbaki said of his first e-scooter ride.

Data from rental operators shows strong evening demand. Bird reports peak ridership from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., while Neuron data indicates 20 to 25 per cent of trips happen during "the nighttime economy." In some markets, Neuron allows riders to add up to five additional users to their account, enabling group rides — a feature one in five surveyed users said they wanted.

The trend reflects how electric vehicles are shifting from commuting utility to social leisure activity across Canadian cities.