Voters in Paris were yesterday set to decide on whether to banish electric scooters for rent from the streets of the French capital, which was a pioneer in adopting the divisive new form of urban transport.
The City of Light once welcomed companies such as Lime, Dott and Tier and their for-hire scooters, which are popular among younger people for covering short distances.
After a chaotic introduction in 2018, city authorities have progressively tightened regulations, creating designated parking zones, limiting the top speed and restricting the number of operators.
Photo: Reuters
However, their presence remains controversial, with pedestrians complaining about reckless driving, while a spate of fatal accidents has highlighted the dangers of vehicles that can be hired by children as young as 12.
“Scooters have become my biggest enemy. I’m scared of them,” said Suzon Lambert, a 50-year-old teacher and Paris resident. “Paris has become a sort of anarchy. There’s no space any more for pedestrians.”
Such views are likely to dominate in the 21 voting booths that were set up around the French capital yesterday, with the exercise billed as a “public consultation” rather than a referendum by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
The pro-cycling Socialist leader announced the vote in January to settle the issue of whether they should be allowed.
She favors a ban, calling the devices a “source of tension and worry” for Parisians in an interview on Thursday.
The consultation would not affect privately owned electric scooters, of which 700,000 were sold nationwide last year, French transport ministry figures showed.
About 100,000 journeys are completed each day in France on rented e-scooters in about 200 towns and cities.
French Minister Delegate for Transport Clement Beaune expects the poll to result in a ban. Some operators also privately fear a negative result unless their mostly young users turn out to vote.
“It’s an important consultation that will be watched by a lot of other towns in France and overseas,” Beaune told Europe 1 radio on Wednesday. “I find it a shame that we have caricatured and dumbed down the debate.”
“Instead of having it as ‘for’ or ‘against,’ we could do ‘for, with rules,’” he said.
He said that e-scooters are a valuable new transport solution that have replaced up to one in five journeys in Paris that would have previously involved an emissions-producing vehicle.
A total of 1.6 million people are eligible to vote, but the turnout is expected to be low. Results were scheduled to be released in the evening.
A ban would be a setback for operators and could encourage other cities to follow suit, but the companies say that they are expanding elsewhere.
“Paris is going against the current,” said Hadi Karam, general manager for France at California-based Lime, citing decisions to increase the number of e-scooters or extend contracts in Washington, Madrid or London.
“There’s a trend towards these vehicles and this trend started in Paris, which was a pioneer,” he said. “Today everyone else is convinced and Paris is deciding to make a step in the other direction. It’s incomprehensible for us.”
The vote has also focused attention on the environmental record of e-scooters amid a debate about whether they help reduce emissions, given that in most cases they replace a journey that would previously have been made on foot or in public transport.
Their batteries also have short life expectancies of about three years on average, the transport ministry asid.
“We think it’s a useful device,” said Tony Renucci, head of the Respire charity that works to reduce air pollution. “We should preserve it and not ban it.”
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
RSS