Though the electric scooters that have popped up in areas around Los Angeles have proved contentious, they’ve managed to persist through local criticism and bureaucratic red tape – until this week.
At a meeting on Tuesday, the Beverly Hills City Council voted 4-1 to ban the scooters from its city, citing public safety concerns and lack of community outreach on the part of scooter companies. This comes as a blow to the electric scooter industry, which saw recent success in Santa Monica with the city's approval of a 16-month pilot program.
But cities all over the U.S. have long been struggling with regulating the new transportation devices, both financially and practically. Places like Santa Monica have been losing out on potential profits by not having fiscally beneficial permits in place, and authorities have had difficulty enforcing safety and traffic rules on scooter riders.
If you’re from Beverly Hills, or other areas of Los Angeles where scooters are picking up, what kinds of regulations are you seeing your city make (if any)? What kinds of safety issues have you seen arise? Do you think cities are entitled to a share of the profits? Call 866.893.5722.
With guest host Libby Denkmann
Guests:
Patrick Sisson, senior reporter covering urbanism and transportation for Curbed L.A.; he tweets
Thomas Lord, Los Angeles-area general manager at Lime, a San Francisco-based startup providing smartbikes, scooters and other urban transportation options