Uber drives over West Village pedestrian bridge

By Hailey Ensor, Staff Writer

Early in the morning on Wednesday, Jan. 28, an Uber driver drove across the pedestrian bridge from West Village going towards Towson University’s main campus.

The passenger, Niya Birdine, was riding home from visiting her friends in West Village when the driver mistook the pedestrian path to be a regular road meant for cars.

“I was on my phone, because for safety,” says Birdine. “I called my mom for the Uber, so I was looking down. I was on my phone, and then, it just felt a little bit more bumpier than usual, so I looked up, and we were going across the bridge at a very decent speed.”

Birdine took a video of the incident and posted it to a TikTok account she shared with friends, @sidequesttu. The video now has garnered over 41,000 likes between the TikTok account where it was originally posted and Instagram accounts @towsonchicks and @stoolbaltimore. 

“The next day, I kind of went back to Uber, and I was just looking at who the driver was, but I couldn’t find it, so I just didn’t think much about it. That’s when I just decided to post the video on our group account,” Birdine said.

Despite being a frequent user of rideshare services, Birdine has never experienced something like this before.

“I kind of look at it as a random one-off, because a lot of the Ubers that I’ve had in them socializing with me, they’ll talk about how they always pick people up from Towson and stuff like that, so I feel like maybe it was just that specific driver that just did that,” she said.

Uber has refunded Birdine for the ride and she filed a report with Uber over the incident, but she hasn’t heard back since. 

Towson University spokesperson Jamie Abell said the university’s Public Safety Office had spoken with Birdine and was still investigating. 

“We are grateful that no one was injured and no property was damaged as a result of this reckless incident,” Abell said. 

She said the bollards, which are normally present at both ends of the bridges, were down at the time so Towson University vehicles could clear snow from the walkways.

“The bridge is engineered to support vehicular weight and is routinely used by facilities and utility vehicles. However, it is not open to general vehicular traffic and is designated solely as a pedestrian bridge.,” Abell said

Uber did not respond to The Towerlight’s request for comment.