Home Editor Picks Pellerin: E-scooter use lags in Ottawa because of insufficient space

Pellerin: E-scooter use lags in Ottawa because of insufficient space

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In Ottawa, we force all non-vehicular traffic to share a measly 20 per cent of all public spaces.

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recent story in the Citizen detailed how the use of e-scooters in Ottawa declined significantly halfway through the four-year pilot program. This is forcing us to come to terms with an unpleasant truth: this relationship just isn’t working. If only we’d given it a little more space.

“A City of Ottawa data analysis reported an 84 per cent decrease in trips using e-scooters in 2022, or about 80,000 total trips, which was 410,000 fewer than in 2021,” the story says. “The city also found that the number of unique riders decreased by 74 per cent: 33,000 for the 2022 season compared to 127,000 in the previous year.”

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There’s no way to spell s-u-c-c-e-s-s with numbers like that.

That’s really too bad because we need more inexpensive, low-emission, non-car options to get around, especially as LRT tunnels crumble, as does OC Transpo generally through increased rates for worse service, and bike lanes keep getting invaded by private vehicles using them for parking “just two minutes.” Did I mention the amazingly weak sidewalks that show cracks big enough to swallow a wayward yak every time we go through a freeze-thaw cycle, which is often?

It’s also a crying shame because both companies involved in the pilot project (Neuron and Bird) had been working really hard and really well with equally-committed city staff to ensure all measures were put in place to make this a success.

A little over two years ago I took a ride on a new and improved Neuron e-scooter after being invited by the company to test out its safety features. They really went all-out to ensure scooters couldn’t operate in areas where they shouldn’t be (such as Lansdowne) using very precise geo-fencing, or that users who park them improperly (for instance by blocking sidewalks) would be held accountable.

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In many cities, authorities are banning e-scooters. The list includes Paris, San Francisco, Madrid and New York. For once Ottawa had the guts to try and get something right.

Anecdotally speaking, those efforts paid off. Walking and biking around town a lot this past summer I don’t remember a single unfortunate event involving a collision or close call with an e-scooter and as a rule the ones I saw were parked in proper locations.

So why aren’t they popular with Ottawa users? Maybe, paradoxically, because their enhanced safety features have made them less thrilling to ride. Maybe also because on e-scooters it’s harder than on a bike to transport much of anything. Age restrictions make them inaccessible to younger users. It may even be that some people are a touch scared by them. Personally I find them a great deal of fun, but it’s true that you do feel a bit exposed especially at high speed.

But mostly I think the reason is we didn’t make space for them. In that column from November 2021 I asked: “Now that those companies have invested all these resources to ensure their technology improves safety for everyone including pedestrians, when can we expect the city to make more room for all active-transportation options by taking away some of the roughly 80 per cent of our public spaces dedicated to private motor vehicles?”

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How can we increase the number of people who choose to walk, cycle or roll without giving them more space in which to do it safely?

Once in Detroit with my eldest we used e-scooters to zip around town and explore many more landmarks than would have been possible by walking or even driving and then parking. It was great, in good part because in Detroit, sidewalks are huge.

Not so in Ottawa, where we force all non-vehicular traffic to share a measly 20 per cent of all public spaces. For some reason, that’s not working too well.

All we needed to make the e-scooter program a success was a little more space. But that, clearly, was asking too much.

Brigitte Pellerin (they/them) is an Ottawa writer

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