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The scooters that ate Brisbane: Finally, a solution looms for city’s e-transport woes

More than a year after the State Government and Brisbane City Council were warned about the potential for the city’s embrace of e-mobility to have a downside, both bodies are finally cracking down.

Dec 16, 2022, updated Dec 16, 2022
E-scooters parked outside King George Square bus station. (Image: John Robert McPherson)

E-scooters parked outside King George Square bus station. (Image: John Robert McPherson)

The rise and rise in popularity of e-scooters, both privately owned and through ride share outfits, has produced a corresponding increase in bad behaviour on two wheels.

Disability groups have complained about the impact poorly parked devices have had on peoples’ attempts to get around the city’s footpaths while even Transport Minister Mark Bailey himself admits he has had to unclog footpaths strewn with abandoned e-scooters several times.

Now its crunch time could be coming for the e-scooters that ate Brisbane after the government and those councils with e-scooter schemes released an “E-mobility Parking Plan” aimed at improving the way such devices are parked and stored.

This comes 18 months after the council released a community consultation report on e-mobility that revealed residents were worried about how the growth of e-scooters and e-bikes would affect footpath etiquette.

The plan is aimed at establishing clear rules for parking the thousands of e-scooters and e-bikes now populating Brisbane streets to keep footpaths clear.

Councils have also signed up to increasing the number of designated parking spaces in and around the city to encourage better behaviour.

Along with share e-mobility scheme providers they will also trial other solutions like on-road parking spaces, racks and tweaking existing geofencing technology to discourage bad parking.

Minister Bailey: “E-scooters are a great way to get around, but too often I see them left in locations blocking paths which creates significant problems for people walking – especially those with limited mobility”.

“E-scooters and e-bikes are a great for quick trips and can reduce congestion on our roads, but we need to manage the clutter issue,” council’s transport chair Ryan Murphy said.

“While we have set strict rules and designated parking spots for where the operators place share scheme scooters, users also need to be aware of how and where to best park these scooters to avoid inconveniencing someone else.

The plan also calls on the companies behind the share schemes to pay more attention to how people can call out bad behaviour.

“Most shared e-mobility providers have a mechanism for reporting poor e-mobility parking, including via an app or web form,” the plan says. “However, there is no standardised approach”.

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It suggests putting contact details on the devices themselves or setting up a complaints hotline.

As for the more obvious solutions like fines for poor parking, the plan admits: While the road rules are an effective tool in regulating the parking of motor vehicles, there are challenges associated with regulating e-mobility parking in the same way”.

“Enforcement of motor vehicle parking assumes that once a vehicle is parked by a driver, it is very unlikely to have been moved.

“By contrast, e-mobility devices are often lightweight and easily moved after they have been parked by a user.

“These devices are also not registered and so it is not always possible to identify a responsible person for an unattended device.”

A simpler solution, the plan suggests, may be for council to strike agreements with share e-mobility providers to encourage improved parking.

The plan has a timeline that will take two years to fully implement but there appears to be some effort to improve things already.

More than a year ago, a space was marked out on the corner of Creek and Elizabeth Sts in the city for e-scooter and e-bike parking. It has remained largely unused until this week, when suddenly it was filled a dozen of the devices, all lined up in a neat row.

 

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