Seattle’s first attempt at incorporating electrical scooters and e-bikes into its transportation system has failed. It’s time to alter course.
In 2020, the Seattle City Council approved the Seattle Division of Transportation to contract with corporations that lease scooters and e-bikes. To get that approval, SDOT made specific commitments:
● Scooters wouldn’t be pushed on sidewalks (besides the place sidewalks are a part of a related bike community, as on movable bridges).
● Scooters could be parked solely in designated areas in order that they might not hinder sidewalks.
● Explicit areas could be electronically “geofenced” in order that riders couldn’t finish their journeys there.
● Scooters and the apps used to entry scooters would supply rider schooling.
● SDOT would monitor the place scooters are parked and high quality riders and distributors for improper parking.
● The highest pace of scooters could be 15 miles per hour.
● Helmet use could be incentivized.
● Not more than 6,000 scooters and e-bikes could be deployed within the metropolis.
SDOT has not satisfactorily met a single one among these commitments:
● Scooters are sometimes ridden on sidewalks, which has severely degraded the standard of life in downtown Seattle, the College District, Capitol Hill and different neighborhoods. Riders go pedestrians at excessive speeds on sidewalks, argue with walkers who ask them to trip in bike lanes or the road, and add a degree of mayhem to city life that astonishes and dismays residents and guests.
● Scooters left on sidewalks, in bike lanes and on streets impede the motion of pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers. Improperly parked scooters additionally violate town’s obligation to keep up accessible sidewalks beneath the People with Disabilities Act, leaving wheelchair customers and the vision-impaired to navigate round deserted autos.
● Geofenced areas are sparse and remoted and don’t lengthen to specific elements of sidewalks.
● The security directions offered by apps and on scooters are insufficient and straightforward to disregard.
● SDOT has devoted little effort to monitoring the place scooters are parked and has not issued significant fines to both riders or distributors for improper parking.
● Scooters can journey at speeds nicely in extra of 15 miles per hour.
● Regardless of the chance of head accidents from falls, only a few scooter riders put on helmets, regardless that Seattle regulation requires it. (King County repealed its obligatory helmet regulation for bike riders in 2022, but the city’s helmet law for scooters still applies.)
● Seattle now has greater than 15,000 scooters and e-bikes, together with greater than 12,000 stand-up and seated scooters — nearly double the fleet dimension that was promised and excess of comparably sized cities like Denver, Portland or San Francisco.
Past the consternation they trigger, scooters are actually accountable for a whole bunch of accidents per 12 months in Seattle. In accordance with analysis carried out by a College of Washington crew, greater than 400 folks have been handled at UW emergency rooms and clinics for accidents incurred in scooter accidents from 2021 via the top of 2024. Many of the accidents (87%) occurred from riders falling off scooters, and most (greater than 95%) have been sustained by riders of rental scooters. These numbers don’t embrace folks seen in different emergency rooms and clinics in Seattle or those that didn’t search medical care for his or her accidents.
Accidents included head and neck trauma, concussions, damaged bones, sprains, lacerations and misplaced enamel. “As suppliers, we’re all seeing these accidents constantly,” mentioned Dr. Austin Gaal, attending oral and maxillofacial surgeon at Harborview Medical Heart, who additionally has been gathering information on scooter crashes. Accidents are significantly quite a few at sure occasions, he informed me, “like after Mariner video games.”
Scooters are additionally accountable for at the least 4 deaths in Seattle over the previous 4 years, together with deadly crashes in Belltown and West Seattle.
Legal responsibility for accidents and deaths brought on by scooter using is a rising subject. As reported by former Washington State Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald within the weblog Put up Alley, Lime just lately agreed to pay $2.5 million to a rider and his spouse who sued town in 2023 for accidents brought on by using a Lime scooter. Future accidents and deaths will inevitably generate way more authorized motion.
In accordance with SDOT’s Vision Zero Action Plan, “the one acceptable variety of critical accidents and lives misplaced on our streets is zero.” But town continues to permit scooter applications which might be inflicting — and can proceed to trigger — widespread and devastating accidents in addition to lack of life.
Different cities have taken steps to manage using scooters. In a 2023 referendum in Paris, 90% of voters authorized a ban on scooters. London, Rome, Melbourne, Barcelona, Atlanta, San Antonio, San Diego and lots of different cities have restricted the place and when scooters can be utilized.
Among the many different restrictions cities have imposed on scooters are licensing necessities, built-in pace regulators, gadgets to forestall tandem using, obligatory parking areas, the banning of headphones and restrictions on privately owned scooters. Not one among these measures has been instituted and enforced in Seattle.
Seattle does have a regulation in opposition to using scooters on sidewalks, together with the newer, seated, pedalless scooters. However sidewalk riders both don’t know concerning the regulation or ignore it, and Seattle police at the moment make no effort to implement it.
The town has made substantial investments in bike lanes and is unlikely to ban rental e-bikes and seated scooters. However the continued use of stand-up scooters in Seattle can’t be justified. A lot of the chaos going down on sidewalks and in bike lanes comes from stand-up scooters. Their small, arduous tires make for hazardous using on uneven surfaces. Falls from stand-up scooters may be significantly harmful. Seated scooters and e-bikes present comparable ranges of mobility.
Some folks will proceed to trip seated scooters and e-bikes on sidewalks, and these autos additionally pose a threat of accidents to customers and pedestrians. However seated scooters and bikes have a number of benefits over stand-up scooters. Folks appear much less prone to trip them on sidewalks, at the least for now. Higher signage, schooling and enforcement of guidelines might encourage riders to make use of bike lanes. And using bike lanes could also be extra interesting as soon as stand-up scooters are gone.
Folks dwell in walkable neighborhoods as a result of they need to stroll locations. It’s unfair and poor public coverage to drive pedestrians to share sidewalks with doubtlessly harmful motorized autos.
