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(Image: City of Seattle)
A community group making increased efforts to represent residents living in Seattle’s core neighborhoods including Capitol Hill and downtown is hosting a “public safety forum” on scooters Tuesday night.
The meeting comes as city officials including outgoing Mayor Bruce Harrell have said more must be done to address safety issues around rental electric scooters including dangerous sidewalk riding and haphazard parking.
“Scooter safety is top of everyone’s minds these days. Seattle has the third largest Lime ridership in the world and is well-positioned for prioritized solutions. Join us for a presentation and audience Q&A with Lime Scooters on what they are doing to address scooter speeding, sidewalk riding, and parking chaos.” the Urban Community Councils of Seattle said about Tuesday night’s planned forum.
On Capitol Hill, the community around affordable senior housing building Pride Place on Broadway between Pike and Pine has also been increasingly vocal about scooter safety and has called on leaders including District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth to address the problems.
CHS reported here on the city’s efforts to paint more than 200 new scooter “corrals” marking legal parking spaces for the rental scooters.
Seattle City Hall is also hoping to hit the rental companies with increased financial penalties.
At a Capitol Hill/First Hill Seattle mayoral candidate forum prior to the election, Harrell said the city has issued “thousands of tickets” to the companies over improper storage and his administration is “looking for ways to get better behavior from the companies.”
Scooter Public Safety Forum
By Urban Community Councils of Seattle
Plymouth Church United Church of Christ
Dec 2 from 6pm to 7:30pm PST
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It seems like the anti scooter crowd (wealthy, older car owners, boomers) won’t be happy until they are banned. They act like scooters are the antichrist. Yes there are bad actors who ride them on the sidewalks (sometimes the street is not safe) and park them really stupidly. But the majority of the riders are following the rules and use them for getting around especially when transit does not get you all the way to your destination. And if you are low income the Lime Access plan allows you to do it for 75 cents to unlock and a penny a minute for your first 10 rides each day. Scooters get me to work in 15 minutes instead of 30 on the bus and I don’t have to wait at the 3rd and Bell sketchy bus stop. So don’t let a few bad actors ruin it for the whole bunch.
It does take a while to get courage up on a scoot to ride in the streets. Also people need to park on the side of the walk. Then of course. The assholes. They are everywhere.
That said? The millions of rides compared to one’s of sidewalk riders is so minute. It’s a .01 of people. It’s the modern day “get off my lawn” mentality. We all understand it’s wrong. So what is the real beef?
IDK man. I have a difficult time with people like that. Just move on with your lives…lol
I ride my personal everywhere. But I am sooper aware and obey all the laws. I see a lot of it. Riding against traffic in a one way bike lane is rare but happens downtown especially. Don’t bother me when someone mindlessly crosses into a bike lane and squished at 17 MPH. Unaware pedestrians are the hazard!
Truth? They are travelers from a place w/o bike lanes. They are simply unaware. They are sidewalk riders too. You are right of course. The argument against is too ridiculous to even contemplate.
wrong.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve nearly gotten mowed down while walking out my by a scooter rider going fast down the sidewalk.
two feet away, there’s a fully protected two-way bike lane, and there’s no reason scooter users can’t use it.
our building has a number of elderly people for whom a scooter impact would have life-changing consequences.
I’m a huge fan of lime and micromobility, and I use limebikes frequently. I think it’s a really important part of the transportation infrastructure and should be enabled.
but scooters have no place on sidewalks;and around pike/pine it’s far from the exception. so I’m in favor of figuring out some way to enable scooters, but prevent serious safety issues.
They are a necessary evil that can be handled a lot better. With GPS/AI they could be slowed down if it detected to be in a crowded area or sidewalk and for the love of god can we get corrals for them like other cities instead of allowing them to just scattered all over in the middle of the sidewalk or road. It would also be nice if they would direct the rider to a bike lane … riding on a sidewalk when there is a bike lane next to it …. Smh.
how do you “detect it?”
There are a lot of bad actors as you call them. I am not old and rarely drive a car. I walk most places. On sidewalks. Scooters have almost plowed into me many times expecting me to give them the right of way on the sidewalk. Many riders don’t even know what the right of way is. If you don’t know the rules of the road you shouldn’t be on a scooter. It is the riders causing problems. Complaints are valid.
Wow that is insane that those private companies aren’t paying for the corrals why are public spaces being trashed for their profits that’s so crazy not to mention people with disabilities are seriously screwed getting around with the sidewalks clogged by all the morons who park in the middle of the sidewalk. The whole thing is just one more example of tech unleashing a mountain of garbage on the world for their own profits and leaving the public to live in a trash world.