Skip to main content

Montreal bans e-scooters following rider misuse

The Canadian city of Montreal has outlawed shared electric scooters from its streets after hundreds of riders disregarded rules on parking and helmet use. 
By Ben Spencer March 12, 2020 Read time: 2 mins
Not all scooter riders played nice in Montreal (© Vlad Ispas | Dreamstime.com)

The decision follows a project last summer in which Lime and Bird deployed 430 and 250 e-scooters, respectively, at various locations in the city. 

Many users reportedly left the vehicles on the pavement or street instead of returning them to their designated areas.  

Last September, the city imposed $50 tickets on riders caught parking illegally.

Police also issued more than 300 tickets to riders who ignored rules on wearing helmets while riding e-scooters. 

A Montreal Bike Coalition spokesman told Montreal Gazette that there was ‘great potential’ in the scheme.

“The average trip on the scooters was just 1.5km and, in 2019, 25% of the trips were linked to public transit. The problem, of course, is that the operators didn’t do what they had to do to make sure that people who were renting them were following the rules when it comes to parking.”

Lime general manager Michael Markevich, says: “With more than 200,000 trips and 50,000 riders in just three months, it’s clear there was a real demand for greener, more convenient transportation options. We remain open to solutions that address the city’s concerns and are eager to bring the program back as soon as possible.”

Those who own an e-scooter may still use them on some public roads.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Europe’s road safety gains have stagnated EU
    March 17, 2017
    Europe will fail to meet its road death targets as enforcement budgets are slashed and drivers face an epidemic of distractions. The European Union will not achieve its aim of halving the number of people killed on its roads each year by 2020, delegates to Tispol’s (the organisation of European traffic police) annual conference in Manchester were told. “The target will be missed because there was only a 17% decrease in road fatalities across Europe between 2010 and 2015 when [the rate of reduction] should h
  • Moscow planning improvements to city’s ITS system
    March 17, 2016
    Buoyed by the success of its recent ITS introductions, the authorities in Moscow are planning additions to the system as Eugene Gerden discovered. The government of Russia’s capital, Moscow, plans further improvement to the city’s transport systems, partly through the introduction of new ITS technologies and the modernisation of existing systems. At the beginning of 2015 the Moscow government completed the introduction of a new ITS infrastructure in the city, which, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin
  • The UK’s busiest crossing adopts free flow charging
    April 30, 2015
    Colin Sowman looks at the transition to free-flow charging on the Dartford Crossing, a notorious congestion blackspot on the UK motorway network. The Dartford Crossing, where London’s orbital M25 motorway crosses the lower reaches of the River Thames 32km (20 miles) to the east of Central London, has long been a major source of congestion. Now, to alleviate the congestion caused by some 50 million crossings per year, the Highways Agency has adopted a free-flow charging system - but the Crossing’s location a
  • Hayden AI goes to Washington
    April 24, 2023
    Company will install as many as 600 bus enforcement camera systems over 10 years