Paris To Remove Most Rental E-Scooters From The City

Most city dwellers have gotten used to e-scooters, although they remain far from popular. Because they always cause trouble – standing and moving – for many. Paris has had enough now and bans e-scooters, 15,000 must be removed.

E-scooters have been part of the street scene in German cities for almost four years, and rental vehicles of this type can be found on every corner in Berlin, and Hamburg. However, the “gold rush” of the first few weeks and months is over, because many startups from the first days no longer exist.

It was no different in other European cities, including Paris. The French capital was one of the first cities to allow rental e-scooters in 2018. About five years later, however, this decision is reversed. Because in a referendum yesterday, Sunday, the Parisians landslidely voted for banishment as TechCrunch reported.

89 percent of the votes cast were against e-scooter sharing. This means that the three providers currently operating in Paris must remove their approximately 15,000 vehicles from the city by September 1, 2023. The organizer of the vote was Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.

E-scooters were unpopular

Hidalgo originally advocated e-scooters and has also passed various laws to promote them. Many Parisians couldn’t get used to this, however, and complained about dangerous driving and clogged sidewalks.

Accordingly, Hidalgo has now changed her mind and referred to the many accidents and the fact that the business model is too expensive. A ten-minute drive costs around five euros, which is simply too much. Studies have now shown that e-scooters do not relieve car traffic as hoped, but are mainly used instead of public transport or walking.

The three e-scooter providers concerned, Dott, Lime, and Tier, criticized the decision and referred, among other things, to the low voter turnout. Only a little more than 100,000 people took part in the vote, which is just 7.5 percent of those entitled to vote.