Disability advocate urges Ottawa’s City Council to scrap e-scooter program

With Ottawa’s e-scooter program one step closer to being approved for the 2022 season, disability advocates are — again — urging the City to scrap the pilot project. 

Ottawa’s transportation committee approved the new pilot program, which means it will head to city council on March 23, but with some changes made to address concerns the City received. 

Among the issues of e-scooters, the City has acknowledged is the vehicles being ridden on sidewalks and being parked in areas they shouldn’t. 

This has become a problem for people with disabilities, especially those who use mobility devices to get around in the city. 

“Before your city council voted in the summer of 2020 to try out electric scooters in Ottawa, I was on the phone with the Mayor’s office talking to senior officials from the Mayor’s office and the city government, saying, ‘If you allow these, you’re going to endanger people with disabilities,’” David Lepofsky, lawyer and disability advocate with Accessibility 4 Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, told The Same Laprade Show on Thursday, March 3. 

“From other cities where they have been allowed, even when you ban them from being ridden on the sidewalks, people will ride them on the sidewalks — and you don’t have the enforcement to stop it.”

Lepofsky calls e-scooters “a silent menace.”

“It’s a joy rider coming along and racing along at 20 km/h, silently, they’re unhelmeted, they are uninsured, they’re unlicensed and they’re untrained,” he added. “And they can hit you and sail off into the sunset. How on Earth do you possibly enforce against them?”

Another issue, Lepofsky said, is when users do not park them in their designated spots and they become a tripping hazard, especially for individuals who are visually impaired. 

E-scooter, the City says, are not permitted to ride on sidewalks or on NCC pathways.

Parking is geofenced, which stops shared e-scooters from entering these areas.

There are “furniture zones” where riders are required to park their e-scooters once they’re finished with them, and they’re usually located on the edge of sidewalks or closest to the curb. 

As part of the effort to address the issues, the City has several recommended changes listed in its report that will go to council on March 23.

They include: 

• Limiting the number of shared e-scooter providers to a maximum of two, selected through a competitive procurement process with a reduced combined total fleet size to 900 maximum e-scooters;
• Amending the free structure in the agreements with the e-scooter providers, to fund additional resources needed to effectively manage the program, while remaining revenue neutral in accordance with the City’s User Feeds and Charges Policy;
• Strengthening agreements with e-scooter providers aimed at enforcing a high compliant approach to improper riding behaviour and mis-parking;
• Streamlining the mechanisms used to report and track issues or concerns;
• Moving forward with sound emission improvements for shared e-scooters in operation.