Electric scooters are here to stay after the Knoxville City Council authorized framework for a everlasting program. Council’s vote on Tuesday replaces the present pilot program, which was practically three years outdated and set to expire on the finish of the yr.
In the brand new ordinance, Knoxville will put out bids for corporations to function here and situation permits for up to two of them to function as many as 300 electrical scooters every. The permits will value $12,000 and embrace a $5,000 bond. Permits could be revoked at any time if riders do not observe parking and utilization guidelines.
Tuesday’s vote was 8-1, with Councilperson Seema Singh voting towards the program. Tuesday’s assembly included a lengthy question-and-answer session the place a number of council members peppered metropolis officers with issues about visitors enforcement, security and the variety of scooters permitted below the brand new ordinance, amongst different issues.
At the start of the dialogue, council members voted 5-4 to ban scooter using from metropolis greenways, with these towards them saying they might be harmful whereas these towards the ban pointed to bicycles (and electrical bikes) that are already prevalent. While it is moot now, scooters have been not permitted in any case on greenways, although an expanded map may have included them sooner or later.
Members have been instructed the lengthy pilot program allowed town to repair the bugs that generally precipitated complications for drivers and pedestrians. At a assembly two weeks in the past, University of Tennessee professor Chris Cherry, an professional on shared mobility gadgets like scooters, stated town’s new coverage promotes the “best practices” and that we are out of the “wild west of scooters” mentality different cities skilled a number of years in the past.
Over the previous yr, there have been roughly 130,000 scooter journeys, primarily in downtown and Fort Sanders neighborhoods plus the University of Tennessee campus, in accordance to metropolis knowledge. These areas, amongst others, will probably be focused with scooter corrals to assist alleviate congestion and assist with scooters being left the place they don’t belong like sidewalks and on Market Square.
This was the most important level of competition Tuesday: Council members grappled with permitting extra scooters wile discovering a foolproof method, apart from the corrals, from holding them from cluttering roads and sidewalks. If the ordinance comes again up for debate in a few months, this will probably be why.
Still, council members stated they realized having a whole bunch of fewer automobiles clogging streets in downtown and Fort Sanders was a profit and there was solely a handful of reported accidents and even fewer crashes requiring police stories.
The new ordinance permits for stricter enforcement of visitors violations, officers stated, as a result of baked into the contracts with suppliers is an allowance for town to go tickets and costs instantly the corporate when customers misuse scooters. The corporations will then go these charges onto the customers.
Police Chief Eve Thomas stated Tuesday her officers would like to proceed to educate riders as a substitute of issuing a entire bunch of tickets.
The council’s ordinance permits for the eventual growth of the scooter’s geofence map — an space the place the scooters are allowed however routinely flip off after they go exterior the boundaries — however that may come later.
The new ordinance permits for up to 30 seated scooters per vendor, however every seated scooter counts for 3 scooters towards the 300-device cap. The proposal would additionally enable for bikeshare distributors to submit purposes and would enable between 50 and 100 e-bikes. The metropolis has beforehand stated it might prioritize bikeshare distributors.