Mayor of Ulaanbaatar City Kh.Nyambaatar recently scolded residents, calling them lazy and unwilling to walk, blaming them for contributing to traffic congestion even when traveling short distances. But if he had made those remarks after beautifying the capital city, maintaining sidewalks, public spaces, barriers, pedestrian bridges, and stairs, one might have been more understanding. In reality, there are barely any safe and peaceful walkways left for the public, let alone dedicated bike lanes.
Try parking your car and using a scooter or bicycle—there’s no proper infrastructure for that. Navigating through traffic on two wheels feels like playing with your life. To say the mayor is unaware of the dangers and difficulties caused by a lack of urban infrastructure in our gray city would be utterly untrue.
One of the capital’s supposed “smart” solutions to traffic congestion was the introduction of scooter, moped, and electric bike rental services back in 2022. But let’s be honest—this wasn’t originally the government’s idea; they merely lent support to private businesses and later took the credit. The real responsibility of city officials was to ensure a safe environment for these electric vehicles. Unfortunately, what should have been a well-regulated service—governed by precise rules and safety standards, as it is in many countries—was instead left unmonitored, resulting in numerous injuries, property damage, and even loss of life.
Time for designated lanes and parking spaces for electric vehicles
As spring arrives and scooter rentals once again start popping up in vibrant colors across the sidewalks, it’s important to clarify: no one is saying people shouldn’t use surrons, scooters, or mopeds. But until designated lanes and proper parking spaces are provided, users of these electric vehicles will continue to invade pedestrian walkways. And that’s simply not fair—or safe—for pedestrians, dear Mayor.
Take citizen B.Bolor, for example. Every morning, she walks a bus stop’s distance to drop her child off at kindergarten, making this round trip four times daily. Recently, however, she has become increasingly fearful of being hit—a concern that became terrifyingly real when her three-year-old was nearly run over by two teenagers riding a shared electric bike. She describes it as one of the most frightening experiences of her life.
“These scooters and electric bikes are supposed to be ridden by one person, but school kids often pile on two or even three at a time and zip down pedestrian walkways like they’re racing,” she said. “Since that, I’ve had to carry my child everywhere. Now that the weather’s warmer, kids naturally want to run and play, but the city is simply too unsafe for them.”
Elderly resident M.Tsetsegee also shared her frustration: “You can barely stand at the bus stop anymore, especially during rush hour. It’s filled with electric scooters parked haphazardly, and kids playing around them often knock them over, injuring themselves. Where are the designated parking spots for these things? There’s barely room on the bus as it is—and now we can’t even stand safely at the stop without scooters zipping by from all directions. It’s become mentally exhausting, always having to be on alert.”
Some residents have also voiced their disapproval of allowing private businesses to exploit public space for profit. Several reported that their children had been injured or nearly hit on their way to and from school. “If the government can’t regulate this service properly, it would be better to shut it down altogether,” some said. Just ask any random pedestrian about the safety of walking through the city — they’ll have even more stories to share.
887 injured and 3 died due to e-vehicle accidents
In many residential neighborhoods and along roadways, pedestrian paths have effectively turned into parking lots. It’s become a common sight for drivers to leave their cars sprawled across sidewalks, abandoning them without a second thought. The reasons for the “encroachment” of pedestrian zones are many and varied. Yet, even if expanding sidewalk infrastructure isn’t immediately possible, the least city officials can do is prevent these spaces from being taken over. Ensuring pedestrian safety should be a core responsibility of city governance.
The National Trauma and Orthopedic Research Center (NTORC) has long warned the public about the dangers associated with electric vehicles. According to national statistics from 2022 to 2024, a total of 887 people were injured and three lives were lost in accidents involving mopeds, scooters, and electric bicycles. Alarmingly, around 60 percent of these injuries involved children.
Among these accidents, electric scooters accounted for 92.9 percent of all e-mobility-related accidents. The remaining cases involved electric bikes and mopeds. Children aged five to 14 accounted for the largest portion of injuries related to scooter accidents. These accidents mainly occurred in public spaces—on streets, sidewalks, and open areas. Numerous pedestrians have also reported being struck and injured by these fast-moving electric vehicles.
In the first quarter of this year alone, 28 people were injured in accidents involving electric mobility devices. Doctors note that children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to such accidents.
Experts at NTORC attribute the growing number of accidents to the lack of dedicated bike lanes and the absence of clear regulations governing the use of electric motorized vehicles on sidewalks and roadways. Injuries resulting from electric scooter and surron accidents vary depending on the speed and impact of the collision. Common injuries include traumatic brain injuries, skull fractures, broken limbs, contusions, internal bleeding, and chest or abdominal trauma.
In response to the rising toll of such accidents, the government is now working on amending the Law on Traffic Safety. A group of Members of Parliament, led by P.Batchimeg, is drafting a bill to implement stricter regulations for electric vehicle users, including age restrictions and clearer rules of engagement in traffic.
P.Batchimeg explained, “The government aims to ensure citizens can travel safely and peacefully. We want to instill a culture of responsible road use among electric vehicle operators. While devices like surrons and scooters help reduce traffic congestion and air pollution, it’s crucial to classify them properly and create dedicated infrastructure. We’re not trying to suppress youth mobility—we’re trying to create a safer and more supportive environment for their usage.”
Adequate standards exist, but not followed
This year, pedestrian walkways in several parts of Ulaanbaatar City are set to be resurfaced with stone tiles, as part of 12 planned construction projects. Currently, work has begun on seven of these, which include the sidewalks along Peace Avenue, Chinggis Avenue, around Sukhbaatar Square, and the Ikh Toiruu and Baga Toiruu. These walkways are said to be completely renovated.
However, building a proper, standard-compliant pedestrian path involves much more than simply removing and replacing some old tiles. Despite this, our officials often boast that replacing paving stones or curbs counts as a full renovation. Based on how these kinds of projects have been carried out in recent years, there’s little hope that they’ll bring any real, lasting improvement to accessibility. Year after year, we hear promises that pedestrian paths will be repaired or expanded, but whether those promises actually meet the needs and expectations of the public is another question entirely.
In fact, Mongolia has long established and continually updated a number of formal standards for pedestrian infrastructure. These include the Guidelines for Designing Paths for Pedestrians and People with Disabilities (MNS 6056:2009), the Planning and Technical Requirements for Pedestrian Roads and Squares (MNS 6808:2019), and the General Requirements for the Planning, Surfacing, and Assembly of Pedestrian Roads and Squares (UCS 0901B:2022). Beyond those names alone, these standards cover everything from proper rain and snow drainage on walkways, to tiling methods, to surfacing and construction techniques, and even detail the required width of walking areas, slopes, crosswalks, guide tiles, warning tiles, surface height levels, permitted spatial dimensions for areas with high pedestrian traffic, materials to be used for temporary paths, and supervision protocols.
If these standards were actually followed and enforced, and if infrastructure was designed and built accordingly, pedestrian pathways in the capital would be among the safest. But that is not the case. Only a few areas—such as the green pedestrian paths in the Moscow apartment complex and around Unur Street—have been designed and constructed to reflect the newest standards. Other than these isolated examples, pedestrian paths that meet proper standards are few and far between. Experts continue to point this out and raise criticisms.
Capital city officials tend to blame this lack of compliance on businesses that build fences beyond their allotted property boundaries, blocking walkways and entrances. They also cite contractors that win public tenders but fail to build according to a unified plan or standard design. In addition, the paving tiles used often do not meet quality requirements and deteriorate in less than a year.
In reality, this problem lies in a much broader failure of responsibility. Those involved—whether it’s the project client, urban planning professionals, architects, civil and road engineers, building engineers, project designers, client-side inspectors, consultants, contractors, or manufacturers—are supposed to collaborate, follow the standards, enforce them, and maintain legal oversight. Instead, what’s happening is that all of them are caught up in personal connections and mutual interests, corrupted by bribery and self-serving motives. This has become the very root of why nothing ever seems to work as it should.
By D.CHANTSALMAA
