Parisians Vote for Citywide Ban on E-Scooter Rentals
Parisians voted over the weekend to ban self-service e-scooter rentals in the French capital.
A landslide 89% of more than 103,000 votes cast in a citywide referendum(Opens in a new window) were in favor of the ban, which Mayor Anne Hidalgo also backs. "Thank you to the more than 100,000 Parisians who spoke," she wrote in a translated tweet(Opens in a new window). "It's a great victory for local democracy. Once again, Paris has been able to innovate."
Self-service e-scooters, introduced in 2018 as a green alternative to cars, have become commonplace on city streets—much to many locals' chagrin. Five years (and hundreds of two-wheeler injuries) after adopting trottinettes électriques, residents have apparently had enough.
"Parisians have overwhelmingly spoken out against self-service scooters," Hidalgo said, tipping a Sept. 1 removal of the city's 15,000-vehicle fleet.
According to France 24(Opens in a new window), nearly 500 people were hurt last year in Paris by micro-mobility vehicles, which killed a reported 27 riders and pedestrians—up from 22 in 2021 and seven in 2020. That hasn't stopped folks from renting them, though; each scooter is used an average of 3.5 times per day in Paris, the highest rate of any European city.
Since 2020, a trio of transportation companies have provided electric scooters to the capital city: Dutch-French firm Dott, US-based Lime, and German's Tier. Each has a three-year contract, set to end this September, that requires dedicated parking areas and top speeds of 12 mph.
"We remain hopeful that we can continue to work with Mayor Hidalgo to adopt sensible regulations instead of a ban on e-scooters, and avoid a step backward for Paris," a Lime spokesperson tells Reuters(Opens in a new
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