Park it (off the curb); The City of Halifax is considering the e-scooter ordinance

Electric scooters are becoming the sure sign that summer has arrived in downtown Halifax and Dartmouth.

And after many months of development, city officials have released a micromobility ordinance targeting e-scooters (Statutes M-300). The Halifax Regional Council voted unanimously in first reading on Tuesday night.

The big takeaways from the statutes include:

• E-scooters are only allowed on roads with a speed limit of 50 km/h or less, on bicycle paths and on multi-use roads in streets.
• E-scooter riders have a speed limit of 25 km/h on carriageways or bike paths, but 15 km/h on multi-use trails.
• E-scooters should not be parked on roads, sidewalks, paths, trails, or anywhere else that would impede the flow of pedestrians, cyclists, or vehicles.
• HRP, RCMP and HRM statutory officers can enforce violations, and fines will not be less than $50 and e-scooters may be confiscated.

Changes to the Motor Vehicles Act in April 2022 sets the rules for e-scooters across the county, allowing municipalities to create ordinances for e-scooters and impose fines for violations. The provincial rules include:

• Riders must be over the age of 14.
• Helmets and bells/horns are required.
• Speed ​​limit of 32 km/h.

“My main concern is with the police,” said Earl Becky Kent (Dartmouth South-Eastern Passage). “We find it hard to get people to slow down in cars.”

While it’s great to let people get around without a car, she said she knows there will eventually be complaints about e-scooters whizzing around pedestrians.

E-scooter rental

Staff also recommended that Halifax Regional Municipalit is launching a two-year pilot project to pave the way for regulating e-scooter rental businesses, which constitutes the second part of the bylaws. And while the regulation focuses on e-scooters, the pilot also includes bike-sharing services.

The idea is that HRM will issue licenses to a few providers who offer bicycle and e-scooter sharing services for journeys shorter than 30 minutes. The staff said the purpose of these services would enable “connectivity, public health and safety, accessibility and environmental sustainability”.

The staff recommends a dockless system with designated e-scooter parking hubs.

And while the pilot would focus on the urban core, there would be an “objective to serve a range of HRM community types, including those with significant equity concerns.”

Four people would be hired for the pilot and for the enforcement of the regulation.

It would cost $70,000 to $76,000 to run the pilot in year one (2023-24), rising to a maximum of $417,500 in year three. But, staff noted, some or all of the costs could be offset by potential revenue from license fees, per-vehicle and per-trip fees, as well as fines. The pilot project would go through for council approval after the bylaws are passed at second reading.

There are two companies in HRM that rent e-scooters through apps: Moving mobility scooters And HFX e-scooters.

Move Scooters allows riders to use an app to reserve an e-scooter and park it when they reach their destination. With HFX e-Scooters, riders park the rental cars in designated areas indicated in the app.

The first rental e-scooters appeared on the streets of Halifax in 2019.

“Halifax, I felt, was the perfect environment for this kind of softer, controlled introduction to shared micromobility…because our Motor Vehicle Act really didn’t make it illegal,” Max Rastelli, owner of HFX e-Scooters, told the Chronicle Herald last year. “There were no statutes making it illegal, so call it a bit of a gray area

“It was unregulated, but it wasn’t illegal.”

Advantages and disadvantages of micromobility

Helping people make short trips without their car or parking space is a huge benefit of the micromobility movement to cities around the world.

Overall, 90 percent of micromobility trips are less than 3.5 kilometers. And in 2019, trips under 3.5 kilometers made up 33 percent of driving from the regional center, staff reported.

“So the 33 percent represents a significant opportunity to shift short journeys from cars to bicycle or e-scooter journeys — potentially one in three car journeys,” the report said.

But e-scooters parked on public sidewalks are a common complaint.

During the April meeting of the municipality’s transport committee, representatives of the CNIB expressed their concerns about e-scooters parked on sidewalks and the dangers this poses to pedestrians.