E-scooters are coming to Montreal, but is the city ready?

Speedy two-wheelers have caused chaos in other cities, with abandoned scooters littering sidewalks and tossed into canals. Montreal says it has the regulations to avoid that.

After e-bikes, it’s e-scooters that are set to roll onto the streets of Montreal. The question is, is Montreal ready?

The diminutive two-wheeled scooters that resemble a skateboard with a vertical steering handle and can reach speeds of 34 kilometres an hour have become a phenomenon in the United States. In many cities, they completely replaced dockless bike-sharing services in the space of a year.

Unfortunately, in many cities they’ve also become a major pain in the behind. Because they didn’t have to be returned to a designated docking station or parking area, abandoned e-scooters supplied by unregulated sharing services ended up littering city sidewalks and parks, blocking traffic and taking up parking spaces. The scooter scourge spawned a curious counter-scooter resistance movement that saw the vehicles being dumped, sometimes by the dozens, into rivers, lakes, canals and oceans, endangering scooters and wildlife alike. They have also been smashed, burned and strung up in trees. An Instagram account called Bird Graveyard collects pictures and videos of vandalized scooters belonging to companies like Bird and Lime. It has 85,000 followers.

Users can also pose a danger to pedestrians and themselves. Suzanne Lareau, president of bike-advocacy group Vélo Quebec, recalls cycling down a bike path in Lyon, France, and seeing electric scooters whizzing by her at top speed — on the sidewalk. Last week, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo held a press conference titled: E-scooters — Putting an End to the Anarchy.

“Without the right regulations in place, introducing e-scooters and e-bikes can result in chaos,” Lareau said.

Her main fear is that Montreal’s rutted and potholed streets could entrap the scooters’ small wheels and send riders flying.

“For me, any form of mobility other than cars is a good thing,” she said. “But I don’t know that scooters are the invention of the century — I think they may be fun, but when you’re rolling at 25 kilometres an hour, they’re also dangerous.”

E-scooters are typically rented with the use of a smartphone app, with a $1 unlocking fee and charges of 15 to 30 cents a minute, for a cost of roughly $9 per half hour.

In light of the debacles experienced elsewhere, Canadian cities are taking a decidedly more cautious approach. With the exception of a couple of well-regulated pilot projects, e-scooters are illegal in most Canadian municipalities. Waterloo, Ont., ran a pilot project last fall with the California-based Lime sharing service in which users were restricted to a 5.5-kilometre corridor on the University of Waterloo campus. More than 18,000 trips were taken over a nine-week stretch. Reviews were mostly favourable, apart from complaints of some scooters breaking down. The pilot project was extended this year. Sherbrooke started a testing project last fall using scooters made by Sherbrooke company Geebee, in which city employees will test them on city streets.

Montreal is next, with a pilot project slated for this summer, said Sarah Bigras, press aide for Quebec Transport Minister François Bonnardel. Presently, electric scooters are not allowed on public roads or bike paths in the province, and the ministry is not planning to alter the highway code yet, Bigras said. Firms will have to apply with the government to have their proposals approved. Riders using e-scooters under the pilot projects will be allowed on streets where the speed limit is 50 kilometres an hour or less, and must wear helmets.

Uber has said it plans to start an e-scooter service in Montreal this summer, but has been scant on details. Uber’s Quebec spokesman did not respond to requests for interviews.

Last week, Uber announced its Jump e-bike sharing service would be hitting the streets of Montrealin the “coming weeks, if not days.” The company applied for the permits this week. It will take days, if not weeks, for the city to study the application and decide whether to approve it.

To avoid chaos, Montreal instituted its own regulations on the control and parking of dockless shared vehicles in April. Interested firms must pay licence fees of $15,000 to $27,500 depending on the size of the fleet. Users of e-bikes must affix them to a city bike rack (parking meters with bike-supports included); e-scooters will have to be parked in designated zones next to sidewalks. No more than four e-scooters can be parked together.

Most importantly, city officials said, e-scooters and e-bikes will be required to have their phone number pasted on the devices so citizens can report those abandoned or improperly parked. Companies will have two hours to pick them up, or face fines ranging from $200 to $2,000, and a possible loss of their licences.

Quebec is also expected to limit the speeds.

“We feel very lucky to have been able to control the problems before they arrived, because without that, they would have come,” said Eric Alan Caldwell, Montreal’s executive committee member responsible for urban planning and transport.

Because e-scooters and e-bikes will replace other forms of transportation, be it cars or taxis or public transit, Caldwell doesn’t see a problem with a proliferation of transportation alternatives clogging Montreal’s streets.

“All means of mobility that gets us away from the issue that causes us the most problems, that is to say the growth of the number of cars in society, the city wants to look at those.”

The city’s regulations stipulate that bike or scooter purveyors must share their data on usage, which will allow the city to know where and when they’re used, and employ resources such as bike racks or parking spaces, Caldwell said.

A pilot project last year in Portland, Oregon, showed that strong regulations can lead to responsible use with limited injuries. Users logged 700,000 trips over a four-month period, mostly for commuting, and largely as an alternative to cars or taxis. Most residents and users reported a positive view of them. The city is extending its pilot project for a full year.

A study on shared bike and e-scooter usage in 2018 found that the 44,000 dockless pedal bikes in cities in the U.S. were virtually eradicated in the space of a year, largely replaced by e-scooters. But it also found that larger, established bike-share systems, like Montreal’s Bixi, managed to retain customers because they were trusted, reliable and far cheaper. The study also found that the use of shared bikes and e-scooters skyrocketed in 2018, doubling in the space of one year and accounting for 84 million trips.

Over at the Dyad shop on Prince-Arthur St. in Montreal, sales of $750 KS-03 Chinese-made standup e-scooters are brisk, despite Quebec’s laws. Buyers are presumably willing to risk the $100 to $200 fines that riding on public streets can bring.

A quick test drive in a protected zone outside the store explains their popularity — they’re easy to ride, nimble and narrow enough to cut through city traffic.

“They’re so light, and so fun to ride,” store clerk Timothy Baldacchino said. “It’s like you’re in the future.”