E-scooters could return to Calgary streets later this spring

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — After a successful pilot project over the past two years, which saw close to two million trips around Calgary’s downtown, e-scooters may soon be back in the city after contracts are awarded.

By the end of the 2020 season, three companies were operating e-scooters — Lime, Bird and Roll — and they became a ubiquitous sight on cycle tracks and pathways.

However, there were also some safety concerns which resulted in the city making some changes.

This included adding lower speed limits in more heavily trafficked areas such as the RiverWalk pathway and introducing new parking spots to reduce the number of discarded scooters blocking pathways and sidewalks. The Eau Claire area saw the highest amount of 311 complaints, despite having lower ridership than the Beltline and the rest of downtown.

There were also dozens of injuries throughout the pilot, largely stemming from riders hurting themselves during trips. This also raised further concerns around intoxicated riders and people doubling up on the scooters and sparking further rule changes to discourage misuse.

The scope of the pilot program also changed at the end of 2019, as scooters proved to be more popular than bikes that were being offered by Lime. This led to the company cancelling the e-bike program and going full throttle into scooters. Bird and Roll then joined the program in 2020 to boost offerings.

WATCH: City administration recommends e-scooter expansion

Moving ahead, with the pilot program over and the city ready to move into a full contract phase, the scooters are set to make a grand return. E-bikes may also return if companies can supplement the funding enough by themselves.

During a committee meeting on transportation and transit on Wednesday, councillors heard two companies will be awarded five-year contracts to operate a maximum of 750 scooters each. The limit may be increased if accessibility issues and other problems can be better addressed moving forward. The city also said the limit of 750 per operator fits in line with other major cities like Milwaukee, Portland, and Memphis.

Administration said scooter companies are properly insured, and speed caps will remain in place to address safety.

But even though the warm weather seems to be here to stay in Calgary, it will be some time until they are back in action.

“We’re going as fast as we can on that, and we are hoping to do May. Late May is kind of our timeline right now, but we can push as hard as we can to get that ready as soon as possible,” said Andrew Sedor with the city.

Sedor said they want to have a competitive process, and also be flexible with the companies, to make sure the best options are chosen.

However, the timeline was seen as a bit late for some.

“I would say that late May is unacceptable,” said Ward 13 Councillor Dianne Colley-Urquhart. “It’s not going to serve our citizens for the need that they have now.”

Colley-Urquhart asked officials to push up the timeline a bit, and she was assured efforts would be made to speed up the process.

In 2020 e-scooters did not return until May as well, but that was because of the COVID-19 pandemic and additional measures needed to be introduced to ensure riders were safe from the virus before the relaunch.

Lime and Bird both said they would like to have e-bikes as well and would like to have the scooters and bikes in more communities around the city rather than just focusing on the downtown area.

The city found that over half of all e-scooter and e-bike trips ended in Business Improvement Areas, supplementing further findings that showed ridership led to improved outcomes for local businesses and attracted more traffic into the stores. A citizen survey also showed a third of e-scooter trips replaced a car trip and that can help reduce emissions.

The committee approved the recommendations unanimously and will be reviewed by the rest of council at a later date.