Let’s give electric scooters a chance
Rent-by-the-minute electric scooters offer a great opportunity to New Zealand cities but both councils and consumers need to be careful.
Scooters operated by Lime will soon be whizzing along the footpaths (they’re not allowed on roads) of Christchurch and Auckland.
They arrive after a mixed response overseas. Some cities, such as Paris and Los Angeles, have embraced them while others, such as Denver and San Francisco, have clamped down on operators, ordering some companies, including Lime, to remove its scooters from their streets.
They’ve been accused of having an ask-forgiveness-later approach, which is similar to how Uber (a major investor in Lime) started.
While some have criticised electric scooters, they do offer a lot of benefits.
First, they are an affordable, alternative form of transport.
It costs $1 to unlock and 30 cents a minute to use and you just leave them at your destination when you’re done (they have a kickstand to keep them out of the way).
They don’t produce any pollution and, in many cases, they’ll be quicker than bicycles, buses and cars for a trip across town.
It’d be great to use one to get from your car to your workplace, removing the stress of trying to find the closest park possible.
They are bound to have growing pains in New Zealand but that’s to be expected with new tech, and it’s great that councils are looking for innovative solutions to inner-city transport issues.
To succeed, residents need to be patient. Give them time to work out and if you see one, have a go – you might just have fun.
Success also relies on councils being vigilant. The scooter firms need access to our cities more than we need them so councils need to ask for changes if needed.
Also, gaining access to Lime’s data is important. The scooters could potentially be a key part of our public transport network and councils will need to see the data so they can react to it.
Electric scooters could be an inventive solution to making it easier to get around our cities but councils and residents need to give them a chance to see if they can work for everyone.