Christchurch scooter trips top 200k

One in seven Christchurch residents have embraced the e-scooter craze, taking more than 200,000 trips in almost two months.

More than 60,000 people in Christchurch have taken at least one ride on a Lime scooter since 400 were launched in the city on October 15. There are now 700 Lime scooters in Christchurch and up to

1000 in Auckland.

The popular and controversial e-scooters have permission from Christchurch City Council to stay on city streets until at least the end of February as part of a trial programme.

A decision would be made early next year whether to grant a more permanent permit.

During an update on the trial at council’s Infrastructure, Transport and Environment Committee meeting on Wednesday, council transport policy planner Nick Lovett said the median distance travelled was 1 kilometre and the median trip time was nine minutes.

‘‘One in seven residents have had at least one go,’’ he said.

Complaints to the council’s call centre about the scooters had peaked at about six a day soon after they were launched, but had now reduced to less than an average of one a day.

The vast number of complaints (68 per cent) were about rider behaviour.

Cr Aaron Keown said there appeared to be a bit of ‘‘user jealously’’ around because a lot of the negative comments were coming from people not using them.

Keown, who is also a Canterbury District Health Board member, said there had not been an influx of people coming through accident and emergency with scooter injuries.

ACC spokesman James Funnell said from October 14 to November 25, there had been 285 e-scooter injury-related claims –

171 in Auckland, 102 in Christchurch and

12 for the rest of the country. Committee chairwoman Pauline Cotter said the central city was coming alive and the scooters had helped kick that off.

Cr Anne Galloway said the Lime scooters should be renamed ‘‘smile scooters’’, because everyone on them had smiles on their faces.

The council has formed a reference group to ‘‘interrogate’’ the performance and impacts of the scooter pilot. The group includes council staff, NZ Transport Agency, Environment Canterbury, Canterbury District Health Board, police, city residents, Age Concern, the Blind Foundation and members of the Youth Council.