Weekly Electric Scooter Media Brief: Aug. 29 – Sept. 4

The past week has seen a slew of cities approving new regulations for electric scooter sharing companies.

National Media

Knolling your block (Curbed, August 30)

Alexandra Lange makes the case for a tidy and well organized sidewalk as electric scooters and dockless bikes increase the pressure on the public realm.

San Francisco just showed scooter startups it won’t tolerate bad behavior (Quartz, August 30)

Quartz presents San Francisco as a case study of a city figuring out how to deal with the sudden appearance of thousands of electric scooters.

An E-Scooter ‘Scourge’? Not So Fast. (Governing, September 2018)

Nicole Gelinas urges planners and policy makers to use the popularity of electric scooters as the impetus for a new approach to streets.

More Rights, Fewer Responsibilities, for Electric Scooter Riders in California (Planetizen, September 4)

Irvin Dawid details a bill approved by the California State Legislature that would relax regulations for scooters, including ending helmet requirements.

Local News

Bird wants to add more scooters to Cincinnati, but the city wants something first (Cincinnati Business Courier, August 29)

David Mann reports on the ongoing negotiation toward finding a balance of regulatory framework and mobility benefit in the city of Cincinnati. 

Dockless Razor scooter rolls into San Diego (The San Diego Union-Tribune, August 29)

Razor, yet another competitor for the increasingly crowded dockless electric scooter rental market, launched operations in San Diego, reports Joshua Emerson Smith.

Bird, Lime, Lyft, Uber will all be allowed to operate scooters in Santa Monica (Curbed LA, August 30)

Alissa Walker details the regulations approved by the city of Santa Monica, one of the first cities in the country to witness and account for the proliferation of scooters on streets and sidewalks.

Scooters to return to SF; Scoot, Skip picked as Lyft, Uber spurned (San Francisco Chronicle, August 30)

Carolyn Said breaks the news of the return of electric scooters to the streets of San Francisco. The city selected two local startups to operate electric scooters.

DC will extend its dockless pilot, but without allowing more bikes and scooters (Greater Greater Washington, August 30)

All the developing news about dockless bike and scooter share operations in the nation's capital.

L.A. approves rules for thousands of scooters, with a 15-mph speed limit and aid for low-income riders (Los Angeles Times, September 4)

Laura J. Nelson reports that the city of Los Angeles has set its first batch of rules to regulate the operation of dockless electric scooter companies in the city.

Read the first installment of the "Weekly Electric Scooter Media Brief" here.