In a major blow to shared micromobility companies Lime, Dott and Tier, Paris has voted to ban electric scooter rentals from its streets. Many in the industry fear that the move in Paris, where hover scooters initially took off in 2018, will have a ripple effect in other cities.
Paris has long been one of the most heavily regulated e-scooter markets, something companies have pointed to as an example of how they can get along with cities. Yet despite limiting scooter top speeds to just 10 kilometers per hour (about 6 miles per hour) and requiring passengers to use dedicated parking areas or pay fines, Paris has become the first city to completely reverse its policy of offering shared micromobility contracts. companies.
In a referendum Sunday organized by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Paris residents voted 89% against keeping shared e-scooters in the city. The three companies that pay for the contracts to operate in the City of Light must withdraw their fleets, a total of 15,000 electric scooters, out of the city before September 1.
Hidalgo, who originally welcomed shared electric scooters to Paris, has pushed for Paris to become a more livable 15-minute city and has spearheaded policies that bring back parking spaces to create new bike lanes and pedestrian friendly areas. However, shared scooters have received a lot of pushback from many city residents who often complain about reckless driving and clutter on the sidewalks.
Hidalgo said on Sunday that scooters are the cause of many accidents and that the business model was too expensive to be sustainable, with a 10-minute trip costing around 5 euros. She also said that free-floating scooters aren’t as climate-friendly as she’d like. Earlier this year, TechCrunch took a deep dive into scooter use in Paris and found through a variety of studies that while e-scooters are incredibly popular, they mostly replace walking or public transportation, rather than the car use.
That’s not to say they didn’t replace any car travel. A study as of 2019, it was found that 7% of the kilometers traveled by scooters replace car and personal taxi travel, a number that has likely increased over the years. But 7% is nothing, says Hélène Chartier, director of urban planning for C40, a global network of mayors taking urgent action against climate change. Chartier previously served as an adviser to Hidalgo.
“As part of a mobility package that Paris would offer as an alternative to cars, [shared e-scooters] it could have been an option,” Chartier said. “Without all the other problems, they could have said, Ok, why not? But if you add the accidents, if you add the difficulty in public space, at some point you have to say that this is not the main solution. We should invest more in bicycles, electric bicycles, walking”.
Low voter turnout
David Zipper, visiting fellow at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, tweeted that he wasn’t surprised to see Paris vote against shared e-scooters, but he didn’t expect such a large margin. That sentiment has been echoed by scooter advocates and the companies themselves.
Dott, Lime and Tier said in a joint statement that low voter turnout affected the referendum results. Only 103,084 people turned out to vote, representing around 7.5% of registered voters in Paris. they blamed restrictive rules, a limited number of polling stations (and therefore long lines that deter young voters) and no electronic voting, saying the mix “leans heavily towards tidy age groups, which has broadened the gap between pros and cons.
In addition, the companies said the referendum was held on the same day as the Paris marathon and that only Paris residents could vote, leaving out those who live on the outskirts of the city but commute.
Operators offered free rides to customers who voted on Sunday and relied on social media influencers to try to get young riders to vote, efforts that appear to have been in vain. Parisians reported that there was a high proportion of older voters in the queues.
The referendum is not binding, so Hidalgo may still make the unlikely decision to keep scooters in the city due to low voter turnout. The numbers clearly show that scooters are popular. Lime previously told TechCrunch that 90% of its fleet in Paris is used every day. In 2021, more than 1.2 million scooter users, 85% of whom were Paris residents, made a total of 10 million trips on Lime, Dott and Tier. That’s about 27,000 trips per day.
The ban will not affect electric bikes offered by shared micromobility companies, which will remain in the city. Similarly, privately owned scooters are not affected by the ban, of which 700,000 were sold in France last year, according to Transport Ministry figures.