Skeptics and fans of electric rental scooters gathered Thursday to learn how the devices could integrate into local cities’ transportation systems.
The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments held a Scooter Summit geared for public officials, interested citizens and key stakeholders at the Santa Barbara Public Library’s Faulkner Gallery.
“We have some new opportunities, new ways of doing business, and it is kind of making transportation sexy,” SBCAG Executive Director Marjie Kirn said during the four-hour event. “It has been about 70 years of using the same modes of transportation that we are used to. Things are evolving.”
Panels of experts talked about how cities regulate the small, dockless vehicles, and scooter company representatives talked about their launches.
“We need a regional approach to get the word out on what the rules and laws are for ridership,” said county traffic engineer Gary Smart. “There are signs that I can put up for traffic laws — stop here, no parking here — but there are no signs for scooters saying ‘don’t ride your scooter on the sidewalk.’”
Distribution of the scooters has happened across the country, including San Francisco, Santa Monica and San Diego.
They are left in the public right of way, including on sidewalks, and users activate the scooters via mobile app.
Last year, Santa Barbara was caught off guard when the Lime Bike company dumped scooters on streets without approval.
The city impounded the scooters within hours and, like other local cities, is working on ordinances to regulate the vehicles.
“We want a platform or vehicle that actually is a little bit more public safe and secure,” said Rob Dayton, transportation and parking manager for Santa Barbara. “Managing the rights-of-way is a challenge with the amount of staff that we have now.
“We don’t want to be in a position of taking our resources that we are using for public use now, and being the police of scooters,” he continued.
Scooters were deployed in Isla Vista and Goleta, which prompted UC Santa Barbara campus officials to ban the scooters on campus.
Goleta banned the scooters with an emergency ordinance, and Planning Director Peter Imhof said the scooters were creating a nuisance on sidewalks and other areas.
“There was a real negative reaction,” Imhof said. “Beyond the safety issues, there is also the aesthetic response of the visual clutter. The congregations of scooters on almost every corner — it was a visually jarring perspective for a lot of people to see.”
Goleta “would be open to some kind of a shared mobility umbrella approach,” Imhof said, but the challenge is reversing the perception of e-scooters.
Carpinteria banned shared rental motorized scooters and electric bikes so staff can develop regulations governing their operation.
The county allows the scooters and bike share programs in certain unincorporated areas.
Scooter company representatives talked about strategies deploying the vehicles and managing users.
Lime‘s community affairs manager in Los Angeles, Karla Owunwanne, said the company has pre-determined “geofenced” areas that prohibit leaving and riding a scooter in certain places, and sets vehicle maximum speeds of 15 mph.
Lime has been asking riders to take photographs of their e-scooters before ending their rides, as a way to educate riders on proper parking habits, she said.
“We realize that this is a fairly new, disruptive technology, and there is a steep learning curve,” she said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.