Scooters

Electric scooters have arrived in downtown Phoenix. It’s a shame the Phoenix City Council isn’t supporting the program.

[Editor’s note: This post has been updated with recent reporting on scooters from local media. See the bottom of this post.]

The Friday Essay: Scooting MidtownAfter attempts in other cities, electric scooters have finally made their way into downtown Phoenix. A six-month pilot program began on 16 September 2019 and will certainly be watched by many interested parties, not least the Phoenix City Council.

As my friend Lauren Potter wrote in a blog post for Downtown Phoenix Inc., the electric scooter pilot program involves scooters from three different companies. The pilot program will be immediately constrained to downtown Phoenix, where scooters can be picked up and dropped off from almost 400 designated parking areas. Scooters can’t be driven on sidewalks, they have to stay on streets or in bike lanes. They also can’t be taken into areas that are pedestrian-oriented, such as the eastern portion of Hance Park (the west portion of Hance Park is outside of the boundaries, turns out). Unique to the electric scooters as a part of this program is that scooters will slow down and stop if they are nearing one of these no-ride zones; it will be interesting to see how that works in practice. Continue reading “Scooters”