Montreal Bans E-Scooters In The City Including Lime And Bird

E-Scooter companies are not following the regulations. Therefore, the regulators have decided to kick Lime and Bird out of Montreal.

Canada’s second-largest city, Montreal, will not issue permits for free-standing electric scooters this year. The city council evaluated a three-month pilot test last summer and considers it to have failed, despite the fact that more than 220,000 trips have been registered. Because over 80 percent of the vehicles have been parked outside the areas marked for this purpose and thus become obstacles for pedestrians and cyclists.

In addition, numerous users are said to have ignored the prevailing helmet requirement. 324 relevant traffic fines issued the local police in the three months of the pilot, as the website La Presse reported. “Montreal doesn’t want to be scooter police,” she quotes city councilor, Eric Alan Caldwell. The pilot company, Lime and Bird, were disappointed.

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While Caldwell is not fundamentally against a new start, he calls on operators to take more responsibility for compliance. In general, pedestrians and cyclists should not be bothered. The English-speaking small town of Westmount, which is surrounded by Montreal, has also announced that it will not allow further rental of the e-scooters. Such privately owned vehicles may continue to be driven in both cities.

Uber’s e-bikes are allowed to stay

The Uber subsidiary Jump, which rents out electrically assisted bicycles, is now allowed to continue. This is reported by Radio Canada, Canada’s French-language public broadcaster. Jump responded to the message “with enthusiasm”. Jump bikes had to be connected to a bike rack after every ride. Therefore, they are less of an obstacle.

However, Montreal is pulling the reins. This year there should be a maximum of three operators, each of whom may put a maximum of 1,000 e-bikes into circulation. The approval fee is increased; an additional fee of $ 75 per rental bike is payable. The city would like to use the money to finance additional bike racks.

Montreal has had a rental system for muscle-powered bicycles since 2009. In 2013 the operator went bankrupt and the city bought up the bankruptcy estate. Since then she has been renting bicycles under the name Bixi. The high levies on electrically assisted bicycles could make it difficult for their landlords to compete with the city’s Bixi.