Scooter, bicycle firms targeted
L.A. weighs rules to curb sidewalk clutter, ensure rider safety amid boom in rentals.
With electric scooters and short-term bicycle rentals continuing to flood the Westside, L.A. city officials have begun to discuss how to regulate the transportation companies to minimize cluttered sidewalks and ensure rider safety.
The Transportation Department proposed a oneyear test program Wednesday that would limit each company — including the start-ups Bird, LimeBike and Jump Bikes — to no more than 2,500 vehicles within city limits, and would impose strict rules for parking and data sharing.
The motorized scooters typically cost $1 to rent, plus 15 cents per minute during the ride, and have exploded in popularity in Southern California’s beach cities, racking up thousands of trips within months. A more flexible and chaotic form of bicycle sharing, which enables users to pick up and drop off bikes anywhere, is also gaining popularity.
The influx of wheeled vehicles has sparked complaints from Westside residents who say speeding users have collided with pedestrians and careless parkers have blocked sidewalks and doorways.
The Los Angeles proposal would require that the scooters and bicycles be parked in the outer edge of the sidewalk and locked to something, such as a bike rack or a parking meter. Inapp directions would guide users to an appropriate spot, officials said.
The city’s most controversial proposal would stop the more f lexible model of bicycle sharing from competing with L.A.’s existing bikeshare system, which is run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The bikes would not be allowed within three miles of an existing or a planned Metro bike-share station. Scooters would not be allowed within three miles of downtown.
The proposal, which would remove vast swaths of central and west Los Angeles from the companies’ business areas, faced immediate pushback from bicycle advocates and the firms at a City Council committee meeting Wednesday. The committee recommended that the proposed geographic bans be eliminated.
John Howland, a representative for scooter company Skip who attended Wednesday's meeting, called the plan a “downtown monopoly.” Other representatives said city leaders should allow as many options as possible that let Angelenos get around without driving.
The ban on scooters and dockless bicycles in downtown, central L.A., Venice and San Pedro could end within six months, once the rental companies establish relationships with the city and show they can follow the laws, city officials said. Other cities have not successfully changed the behavior of the short-term rental companies, or their users, by issuing fines, Transportation Department manager Seleta Reynolds said.
City Councilman Mike Bonin, whose Westside district has already seen an influx of scooters, said he was concerned that the proposal would take away “a huge chunk of the market,” particularly in dense neighborhoods where the scooter rentals have proved popular.
Bonin urged the Transportation Department to eliminate the ban on operating within three miles of Metro bike-share stations and the rule that would require that the vehicles be locked to something when not in use. He also asked the city to reconsider how many vehicles the companies would be allowed to operate.
A cap would restrict Bird’s “ability to service the community,” said Carl Hansen, the scooter company’s director of government affairs.
Councilwoman Nury Martinez, who represents the eastern San Fernando Valley, asked whether the council offices could be involved in determining where the services operate.
Metro discussed the scooter and bike-share regulations with Los Angeles in December, but had not seen the city’s final proposal and did not have a position, an agency spokesman said.
Since launching in downtown in 2016, Metro’s bikeshare system has struggled to attract new users.
Critics have said that the system does not serve enough areas, and the neighborhoods where bikes are available don’t have enough stations. Metro officials have attributed the sluggish ridership to a “lack of a bicycle culture” and residents’ fears of riding in L.A. traffic without protected lanes.
On Thursday, Metro’s directors will consider expanding the service and reducing the cost.