David Lepofsky, lawyer and incapacity advocate with Accessibility 4 Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, says the autos are a hazard to these with disabilities.
With Ottawa’s e-scooter program one step nearer to being authorized for the 2022 season, incapacity advocates are — once more — urging the City to scrap the pilot mission.
Ottawa’s transportation committee authorized the brand new pilot program, which suggests it should head to metropolis council on March 23, however with some adjustments made to tackle issues the City acquired.
Among the problems of e-scooters, the City has acknowledged is the autos being ridden on sidewalks and being parked in areas they shouldn’t.
This has turn out to be an issue for individuals with disabilities, particularly those that use mobility gadgets to get round within the metropolis.
“Before your city council voted in the summer of 2020 to try out electric scooters in Ottawa, I was on the phone with the Mayor’s office talking to senior officials from the Mayor’s office and the city government, saying, ‘If you allow these, you’re going to endanger people with disabilities,’” David Lepofsky, lawyer and incapacity advocate with Accessibility 4 Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, advised The Same Laprade Show on Thursday, March 3.
“From other cities where they have been allowed, even when you ban them from being ridden on the sidewalks, people will ride them on the sidewalks — and you don’t have the enforcement to stop it.”
Lepofsky calls e-scooters “a silent menace.”
“It’s a joy rider coming along and racing along at 20 km/h, silently, they’re unhelmeted, they are uninsured, they’re unlicensed and they’re untrained,” he added. “And they can hit you and sail off into the sunset. How on Earth do you possibly enforce against them?”
Another problem, Lepofsky mentioned, is when customers don’t park them of their designated spots and so they turn out to be a tripping hazard, particularly for people who’re visually impaired.
E-scooter, the City says, usually are not permitted to experience on sidewalks or on NCC pathways.
Parking is geofenced, which stops shared e-scooters from getting into these areas.
There are “furniture zones” the place riders are required to park their e-scooters as soon as they’re completed with them, and so they’re normally situated on the sting of sidewalks or closest to the curb.
As a part of the trouble to tackle the problems, the City has a number of really useful adjustments listed in its report that may go to council on March 23.
They embrace:
- Limiting the variety of shared e-scooter suppliers to a most of two, chosen via a aggressive procurement course of with a diminished mixed complete fleet dimension to 900 most e-scooters;
- Amending the free construction within the agreements with the e-scooter suppliers, to fund further sources wanted to successfully handle the program, whereas remaining income impartial in accordance with the City’s User Feeds and Charges Policy;
- Strengthening agreements with e-scooter suppliers aimed toward implementing a excessive compliant method to improper driving behaviour and mis-parking;
- Streamlining the mechanisms used to report and monitor points or issues;
- Moving ahead with sound emission enhancements for shared e-scooters in operation.