Electric shared scooters can no longer be rented in Paris from September this year to go from A to B. A clear majority of Parisians decided this in a referendum on Sunday, with the central question: “For or against shared scooters in Paris?” Nearly 90 percent voted against, report French media. A side note is the low turnout: less than 8 percent of the 1.4 million eligible Parisians voted.
There are about 15,000 e-steps spread across the French capital, operated for the past five years by providers such as Lime, Dott and Tier. The scooters can be rented in the same way as shared scooters from Check and Felix in the Netherlands: you select one via an app, take your ride, and leave the vehicle in a designated area. The contracts between Paris and the three providers expire at the end of August.
Now that the people of Paris have spoken out against the steps, the chance of extending the contracts with Lime, Dott and Tier is minimal. The referendum is not legally binding, but Parisian mayor Anne Hidalgo, herself an outspoken opponent of the shared scooters, had already indicated before the vote that she wanted to honor the result. The socialist mayor repeated that after the result was known: the “very clear message [van de stemmers] is our guide,” she said.
The promise of the shared electric scooters was one of sustainability and accessibility, only after five years are the disadvantages in particular etched in the collective consciousness of Parisians. They are seen as thorns in the eye and – despite increasingly stricter regulations – regularly cause unsafe traffic situations. Last year alone, there were 459 registrations of accidents involving shared scooters and similar vehicles in Paris, three of which were fatal.