The City of Melbourne has terminated its contracts with electric scooter share rental companies Lime and Neuron, citing community safety concerns.
At the Melbourne Futures Committee meeting on August 13, a report from council management recommended that long-term procurement be postponed until the Victorian Government's new regulations can be proven to be effective.
In July, Public Transport Minister Gabriel Williams, along with Mayor Nick Rees, announced the introduction of stricter rules to improve safety and declared that electric scooters were “here to stay”.
Minister Williams said: “We know there are safety concerns, which is why we have thoroughly assessed the use of electric scooters and are implementing some of the toughest new laws in the country to make them safer. “We are introducing it,” he said.
“It’s popular with commuters, especially shift workers, offering them an additional option to get home safely.”
However, the mayor ended up introducing an alternative motion, leaked to the media the day before the Aug. 13 meeting, instead calling for a complete ban on shared electric scooters from the municipality.
Councilors voted 6-4 in favor of the motion, giving providers five days' notice and then 30 days to cease operations and remove all 1,500 electric scooters from the city of Melbourne. It became.
A controversial surprise proposal to ban electric scooter rentals on the eve of a city council meeting attracted a significant number of suggestions from across the community, with many expressing support and disapproval.
At an Aug. 14 press conference, Mayor Nick Reese said there were “good arguments on both sides,” but concerns for community safety prevailed.
“We've heard from traders in the city, we've heard from residents, we've heard from the head of emergency services at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and we've heard from a blind woman who tells us the city's footpaths are unsafe. Cr Reece said.
They told us that the electric scooter trial didn't go well and there were too many people breaking the rules, not wearing helmets, having two drinks, riding on the sidewalk, and causing problems for people on the street. I said it was posing a danger.
More than 600 submissions were heard at the council meeting, including one from Mark Putrand, head of emergency medicine at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, who said up to 40 people a month suffer injuries from electric scooter accidents. He said he was visiting the department.
Cr Reece said the city's bike share service would continue.
“The reality is that we haven't yet seen the same problems with shared bikes that we've seen with electric scooters,” he said. “We don't believe bikes are illegal and I'm happy to see this type of bike sharing continuing in Melbourne.”
In July, the Victorian government legalized the use of both shared-hire and private electric scooters across the state, introducing stricter regulations to improve safety.
The measures are due to come into effect in October in Melbourne and include increased fines for riding on footpaths, drinking while riding, not wearing a helmet and underage riding.
The changes will also introduce new offenses for riding as a passenger and not wearing a helmet as a passenger.
The regulations follow the government's announcement that electric scooters will be allowed to be used across the state after a successful two-year trial in Melbourne, Yarra and Port Phillip councils, which ends on October 4. be.
In 2022, former mayor Sally Capp said the trial was “one of the most successful in the world”, completing the project in just four months, compared to London, which took a year to reach the same milestone. He said he had reached 1 million trips.
Since then, electric scooters have skyrocketed in popularity across Melbourne.
Mayor Nicholas Rees, appearing in court alongside Minister Williams in July, pointed out that more than nine million trips had been taken, adding that almost a third of those trips were in lieu of car travel. praised.
But in relation to the new regulations, Cr Reece said: “This is a state government issue and we supported them. Every step is progress.”
“In any case, we only had a few months left on our contract, and we decided we couldn't wait another six months due to the safety risks.”
Rohan Reppert was one of four MPs to vote against the e-scooter ban motion, along with Dr Ball, Hakim and Mary O'Sullivan-Miles (formerly of Dodge), and was one of four MPs to vote against the motion to ban electric scooters. He said there was not enough data. You can't make an informed decision yet.
Dr Ball described Mr Rees' motion as “sudden” and said it was “unfortunate” that the issue was being raised at a council meeting so close to October's local government elections. . Meanwhile, Cr Hakim said that while he supported all discussions on the issue, given that the government's new regulations had not been tested, the sudden ban represented the right kind of “circuit breaker” that was needed. He said it was not.
Councilors Louie, Campbell, Change, Le Rue and Griffiths were the other councilors who voted in favor of the Mayor's motion to halt the project. •
