Stuart named the company Oonee after the Japanese word for sea urchin.

BORN AND RAISED Bedford-Stuyvesant and Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn

EDUCATION Bachelor’s in political science, Tufts University

FAMILY BACKGROUND Stuart is a first-generation Caribbean American. His mother hails from Barbados.

CYCLIST FOREVER Stuart doesn’t have a driver’s license and has never learned how to operate a vehicle. “We didn’t own a car. My mom didn’t drive. I don’t drive.”

PREFERRED BIKE His go-to two-wheeler for getting around the city is his Jamis Quest Comp steel-framed road bike. “It’s a good all-around bike that can make commuting, errands or exercise riding pretty fun, and it only weighs 23 pounds,” he said.

In 1998 maps of public transit networks from cities across the country began crowding the mailbox of the Brooklyn apartment where Shabazz Stuart, then 9, lived with his mother.

Maps of Baltimore, Atlanta and Boston were all addressed to Stuart. His mom found this puzzling—until she looked at her phone bill. He had called every major transit agency he could think of to have the maps mailed to him.

Growing up, Stuart had an all-consuming love of transit. Instead of obsessing over the superheroes in his comics, he was fascinated with their fictional cities and envied their futuristic street infrastructure.

"It made me think, What would my fictional city look like? And how would it be similar?" Stuart said. "I really began to understand at the age of 22 how walking, cycling and public transit were all aligned, and how that was essential to creating the kinds of livable communities that we want for New York."

Stuart recognized that for some in his neighborhood who couldn't consistently afford mass transit, biking was a necessity.

In 2015, while Stuart was working at the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, in charge of capital projects for a streetscape of more than 1.1 million square feet, he came up with the idea for a startup that would build some of the infrastructure he fantasized about as a child.

Each day Stuart commuted to work by bike from Crown Heights to Downtown Brooklyn. In five years his bike was stolen three times. Bikes can cost from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, so a bike theft, especially to someone who relies on one for work as a delivery worker or a courier, can be a real blow.

"It's something that we all know exists as a problem—that it's really annoying; that's it's pervasive—but people seem to accept that it's kind of inevitable," Stuart said. "I'm from Brooklyn, so I'm very stubborn, and I thought, No, there's got to be a better way to do this."

He started to brainstorm solutions for free, secure bike parking. An initial thought was to persuade landlords to open up their bike rooms to cyclists through an app. But property owners weren't biting. Then he asked a friend, architect J. Manuel Mansylla, to help him come up with a design.

The result was Oonee: a Brooklyn-based startup, co-founded by Stuart and Mansylla, that produces modular parking pods for bikes and scooters. The structures are accessible through a free app and come with security features. They're also designed to enhance public spaces with green roofs, lighting and benches. They generate revenue through ad space sold on the pods. The firm made $248,000 in gross revenue last year from two pods.

A handful are scattered around the city, including one at Grand Central Terminal in partnership with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and another is traveling to neighborhoods in a pilot program with the city's Department of Transportation. In May the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced that it was rolling out pods to three new locations. The company is in talks with other government agencies, Stuart said. More than 40 are planned for the metropolitan area.

Oonee's investors include Jump Bikes founder Ryan Rzepecki and venture-capital firm Third Sphere.

Stuart hopes the pods will become as ubiquitous as newsstands or pay phones were, but for now he's proud to be a part of reshaping the conversation around bike infrastructure and sustainable streets.

"I know this sounds really crazy," Stuart said, "but I believe we're going to change the world."

Staying current is easy with Crain's news delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge. Click below to see everything we have to offer.

Don't miss the chance to get the biggest news first! Stay connected to New York business news in print and online

Crain’s New York Business is the trusted voice of the New York business community—connecting businesses across the five boroughs by providing analysis and opinion on how to navigate New York’s complex business and political landscape.

685 Third Avenue New York, NY 10017 (212) 210-0100