The City of Phoenix launched its six-month E-scooter pilot program Monday, starting it off with a Launch and Learn event where the Police Department and three e-scooter companies could discuss how to ride e-scooters and riding rules.
Downtown Phoenix Inc. and the Phoenix Community Alliance hosted the event while e-scooter companies Lime, Spin and Bird, along with Downtown Phoenix Inc., tabled at the event so Phoenix residents could be prepared when using the scooters.
“We want to make sure that people ride the scooters,” Chief Marketing Office of Downtown Phoenix Inc. R.J Price said. “It is a huge tool in the toolbox, as we grow as a downtown, to get people to and fro without their car, whether that is through light rail, bike share, or e-scooters.”
According to a pilot program press release, each vendor can deploy up to 300 scooters at one time. These scooters will be parked in designated parking areas. E-scooters must be parked in a parking area after using them.
E-scooters can reach up to 16 mph. People who ride e-scooters, according to the press release, must obey all traffic laws. For instance, people cannot ride an e-scooter on the sidewalk or can receive a D.U.I if they are operating the scooter while under the influence.
E-scooters can only be ridden within the set boundaries, 7th Avenue to 7th Street and Buckeye Road to McDowell Road. According to the pilot program press release, there are also no ride zones where people cannot ride e-scooters.
Like driving a car or riding a bike, riding an e-scooter also leads to risk of injury. At the launch, each company had people sign waivers before teaching residents how to operate the e-scooter.
Despite the risks, Spin General Manager Justin Camarda said that people can stay safe by “wearing a helmet, staying off the sidewalks, and following any type of speed limits that might be in place” at the event.
“A really big and important piece of our business is making sure people enjoy themselves but are always safe,” Camarda said.
Banner Urgent Care also attended the launch to promote their downtown location and inform people of medical services in the event of an accident. Samia Kadri, a nurse practitioner at Banner, said that the CDC reported there is a 25% chance of injury with first time e-scooter riders.
“Obviously, there may be accidents. We do offer x-rays, specifically ankle x-rays, because most people will twist their ankles. We also offer sutures and wound care or just urgent care services,” she said.
But because the city is growing, Price said that scooters will be “a huge part” of contributing to the city’s growth, especially downtown.
“Our downtown neighborhood is going to double its population in the next three years. We can’t do that with our current infrastructure that we have,” Price said. “We have to evolve. We have to make sure we are getting people to and from in a non-car mobility fashion.”
The pilot program will last until March 15, 2020. City Council will then evaluate the impact of the program in downtown and decide on whether to keep the e-scooters or not. But for the next six months, Phoenix will have both cars and scooters on its streets.
“We need to do a better job to make cars recognize that there are non-car mobile people out there, whether it is pedestrians or bikes or scooters,” Price said. “The more we can get those two to play together and be in our streets, the better off we will be in our downtown because we are growing one way or another.”
Contact the reporter at ldiethel@asu.edu.
Lisa Diethelm is the Politics editor for the Downtown Devil while she studies at The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in downtown Phoenix. She grew up in California and started her journalism career in high school.
