After months of planning, e-scooters will soon be arriving in downtown Phoenix on a trial basis.
The pilot program, set to last six months, will see e-scooters deployed between Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street, and from McDowell Road to Buckeye Road, as well as the area bound by Roosevelt and Grant Streets.
Back in May, Phoenix City Council voted to end their dockless bike share program in favor of e-scooters. Docked bikes, such as the green-colored Grid bikes found near light rail stops, will not be affected by the change.
E-scooters have already made their way to cities around the Valley, including Tempe, where ASU eventually banned the dockless scooters from riding through campus.
The city of Phoenix plans to impose restrictions on e-scooter usage.
Riders must be 18 years or older with a valid driver’s license, and use of helmets will be “encouraged,” according to Street Transportation Assistant Director Briiana Velez, who presented the pilot to City Council.
Riding on sidewalks will also be prohibited, and riders may not exceed 15 miles per hour. According to IndyStar, Bird scooters reach about 15 miles per hour while Lime scooters can reach up to 20 miles per hour.
According to Velez, the city planners have identified 400 locations where the dockless scooters can be placed.
The contract period will begin on Sept. 16 and end March 15, 2020, but could possibly be extended an additional six months. Each private e-scooter vendor can deploy no more than 300 scooters each.
The city has said it will be monitoring e-scooter activity and considering public input during the trial period.
Contact the reporter at Madeline.Ackley@asu.edu.
Madeline is the community editor for Downtown Devil and is a senior studying at the Walter Cronkite School. She is a local freelance journalist who primarily covers politics, policing, immigration and business. In 2019, she won first place in her category in the national SPJ Mark of Excellence Awards for her reporting on deported veterans in Tijuana, Mexico with Cronkite News.
