By Tom Cowie
Picture this: you’ve just finished work in Richmond and need to get home to South Melbourne. You see a hire e-scooter and consider it over an Uber, cab or public transport.
Then you remember there’s no way of crossing the e-scooter no-go zone that spans the CBD and other inner-city suburbs like South Yarra, Carlton and Southbank.
Melbourne’s two remaining e-scooter zones have effectively been cut off from one another after a decision by the City of Melbourne to stop the hire schemes from operating inside its municipal boundaries.
The City of Yarra and City of Port Phillip are continuing to conduct trials of e-scooters, in conjunction with the state government, however at least one of the councils will re-evaluate their operation in light of the City of Melbourne ban.
Premier Jacinta Allan opposes the ban and said she hoped the council would come to a “common-sense decision” rather than forcing the state government to step in.
There are still some questions about how the City of Melbourne will stop the scooters entering their jurisdiction, however it’s likely that they will be geo-fenced so the battery cuts off when they reach the border.
It is the same technology restricting scooters from operating outside the currently permitted council areas.
As Stonnington is not part of the trial, that means there won’t be a way of crossing the inner suburbs from east to south on a hire e-scooter operated by Lime and Neuron.
Port Phillip Council Mayor Heather Cunsolo said her council was unaware the City of Melbourne was proposing to discuss discontinuing scooters until the ban was proposed this week.
“We now need to consider what last night’s decision may have for our approach,” she said.
Cunsolo said Port Phillip was responding to community concerns about safety and amenity impact by capping the number of e-scooters at 500.
“We also insisted the operators do more to address breaches such as riding on the footpath, no helmets and e-scooters being left on footpaths and driveways,” she said.
At a meeting on Tuesday night, City of Melbourne councillors voted to withdraw from the contracts with Neuron and Lime with five days’ notice, giving the companies 30 days to remove their e-scooters from the city.
Those voting in favour of the motion argued that the e-scooters have made Melbourne’s footpaths unsafe, with many users disobeying road rules, including the requirement to wear helmets.
The City of Melbourne voted on Tuesday to cancel the trial of hire e-scooters.Credit: Joe Armao
The council’s decision means Lime and Neuron e-scooters will be removed from the CBD and surrounding suburbs – including Docklands, Carlton, Southbank, South Yarra, Flemington, Kensington, Port Melbourne, Parkville and East Melbourne – from mid-September.
On Wednesday, Allan said she hoped the decision would be reversed as the state government’s position was that e-scooters were an important part of reducing people’s reliance on cars.
“It’s an interesting change of heart by the City of Melbourne,” she said.
“I know it was only two or three weeks ago that the lord mayor was out there talking about the 3 million trips that e-scooters have saved across the city, and how they have a role in that public transport network.”
Rather than banning e-scooters, Allan was in favour of strengthening regulations to increase safety for users and pedestrians.
“We’ve recognised that e-scooters have a role but that also the safety framework needed to be strengthened,” she said.
She said that users also needed to take some personal responsibility to ensure they were riding correctly.
“My message to e-scooter users and lovers is that if you want to see e-scooters part of our transport network, make sure that they’re used appropriately,” she said.
Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece speaks on Wednesday as an e-scooter rides past in the background.Credit: Joe Armao
When asked if the state government had the power to overrule the council’s decision, Allan said she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“They’re a government in their own right,” she said. “I would much prefer that councils come to their own common-sense decision.”
Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece defended the council’s decision at a press conference on Wednesday, claiming it would make the city safer.
“This was an opportunity to end the havoc on Melbourne’s footpaths,” he said.
Reece said that there were over 600 submissions on the council’s motion, as well as dozens of people who presented at the meeting both for and against the proposal.
“We heard from shop traders in the city, we heard from residents, we heard from the head of the emergency department at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, we heard from a blind lady. They told us that the city’s footpaths have not been safe,” he said.
As for whether the decision was fair to the companies involved, Reece said the contracts stipulated that the trial could be ended at any time with 30 days’ notice.
“The contractual arrangements are very clear,” he said.
“It’s there in black and white that the city of Melbourne can end the contract by giving 30 days’ notice, and that’s what the resolution of council last night did.”
Independent councillor and lord mayoral candidate Jamal Hakim, who voted against the proposal, said it was a knee-jerk reaction. He said hire scooter companies had advised the council about technological solutions to their concerns, including using geotagging to enforce parking zones and to ensure scooters did not go on footpaths.
“We’ve got to put the onus on the operator to find the solution and to implement it. And they’ve got it, they said they can do it,” he said.
“It [cancelling the contract] doesn’t return us to be able to support the city coming back to life. It is shutting things down.”
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