Parisians will be called to the polls on Sunday April 2 to decide whether or not to maintain self-service scooters in the capital, Anne Hidalgo announced on Saturday January 14 in a interview with the readership of Parisian.
This simplified referendum, or “vote”will “in the polling stations”, “on the basis of electoral files”and should “Answer a very simple question: do we continue with self-service scooters or not? »explained the socialist councilor, at the head of the city since 2014.
The mayor of Paris is leaning towards stopping the self-service provision of electric scooters. “But I will respect the vote of the Parisians”she said, noting that a recent consultation of the inhabitants of the capital showed that the subject was “very divisive”.
A ban to “calm the streets and sidewalks”?
At the end of September, the Town Hall had threatened the three operators Lime, Dott and Tier, which total a fleet of fifteen thousand vehicles, not to renew their contract. This expires at the end of March.
Between accidents and users traveling in pairs or on the sidewalks, strewn with badly parked scooters, the Town Hall wonders about the “cost-benefit ratio” scooters, as well as on their “environmental cost”had underlined the deputy of Mme Hidalgo in charge of mobility and roads, the ecologist David Belliard.
The debate does not concern private scooters, for which there is no ” no worries “however, specified Mr.me Hidalgo. But self-service without a home base (or free floating) “is not green” and “the employees of these companies are not properly protected” socially, she argues.
“It’s cumbersome, it’s dangerous”adds in a reaction to Agence France-Presse Mr. Belliard, who has also chosen the no side, for “appease [les] streets and [les] sidewalks ». “We have too many negative feedbacks”he summarizes.
A “street code” will be presented in June
To save their place in one of the most visited cities in the world, a very symbolic market, the operators had formulated at the end of November eleven proposals to reinforce the safety of users and pedestrians, and better integrate the machines into the public space. . Among these, a license plate to facilitate the verbalization of users who burn out the lights or drive in pairs.
Regarding the difficulties of traffic and the cohabitation of modes of mobility (car, public transport, bicycles, scooters, scooters, etc.) on the roads of the capital, Mme Hidalgo felt that Paris was catching up on the matter and was currently in “a phase of transition”. “Each tries to find its place, a little to the detriment of the other. Except that in the end the most fragile remains the pedestrian”, she asserted.
He “lacks a street code, to say how we behave and how the municipal police punish those who do not respect the rules”. A “citizen assembly” currently working on this « street code [qui] will be presented in June »announced the mayor of Paris.