Paris Referendum to Consider Scooter Ban

Paris, France

A referendum of Paris residents in April will vote on a proposal to ben e-scooter share services in the French capital.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has indicated she supports banning e-scooters from Paris streets, despite being a globally-recognised champion for cycling commuting and active transport.

She said safety concerns and managing e-scooter parking were primary reasons she backed the ban, even though the industry is subjected to much tighter regulations since they were introduced to the city.

The city government said several regulatory measures have been implemented since the city’s current share service providers – Lime, Dott and Tier – signed agreements in September 2020 to operate their services.

At that time, Paris cut the number of operators to three and the number of scooters to 15,000.

The subsequent stricter measures included creating 2,500 parking areas to “avoid anarchy on the sidewalks” and limiting the scooters to a maximum speed of 10kmh for most of the city.

“Faced with the disrespectful behavior of many users, the operators also announced measures at the end of 2022: ban for minors, registration of scooters,” the city said in a statement.

It says the three operators each signed an agreement for the occupation of the city’s public domain for a period of two years. That term was extended by six months to give the City time to make a decision on the future of scooters.

The ballot will be held on 2nd April.

Stockholm Cuts Scooter Numbers

Sweden’s capital city, Stockholm, has halved the number of share scooters operating in the city from around 23,000 to 12,000 and split equally among eight operators.

They include homegrown company Voi, which operates in more than 100 European cities and has over 6,200 scooters in Stockholm during its 2022 summer.

According to German newspaper Politico, Stockholm Vice Mayor for Traffic Daniel Helldén has been pushing for a cut to e-scooter numbers in the city and believes residents were tired of sidewalks blocked by abandoned two-wheelers.

“The situation has become too chaotic,” Helldén said. “Last summer, we had places where you couldn’t get to where you were going … Stockholmers couldn’t accept the disorder.”

From this month, e-scooter operators in Stockholm — including Lime, Bird, Tier and Dott — will also have to follow new parking rules or risk being banned from the city after a review of their performance in July.