Parisians will be able to directly decide the future of electric scooters self-service in the capital, machines that Anne Hidalgo would like to exclude from the landscape.
The city of Paris, which is teeming with scooters (electric or not) in its streets, will it see its self-service electric models disappear from circulation? While she is firmly opposed to these vehicles, Anne Hidalgo prefers to rely on Parisians and Parisians. A local referendum will take place on Sunday April 2 to decide definitively on the question.
A referendum that will allow Parisians to make a common decision
” My idea is that we stop self-service electric scooters in Paris “, confided Anne Hidalgo to a handful of readers of the Parisian-Today in France. The mayor of Paris, who is rare in interviews, has never really been thrilled with free-floating electric scooters, recalling that they ” crowd the streets ” and ” the model is not ecological “.
If it were up to her, the mayor of Paris would have already decided the fate of these machines. But its unpopularity in terms of transport and traffic is such that it pushes it to act more strategically, in particular by entrusting its constituents with the task of making a decision that will be relatively difficult to challenge later.
The referendum will take place on April 2, 2023 and should, in theory, only be open to Parisians (excluding, in fact, other inhabitants of the Île-de-France region). The vote will be similar to a traditional electoral ballot, which will therefore require you to go to your usual polling station. Nothing is final yet, but such is the current trend.
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The situation could therefore be unprecedented. What is certain is that it follows long negotiations between the operators Lime, Dott and Tier, which have deployed a fleet of 15,000 self-service scooters in the capital.
The operating license of these three companies is also supposed to end on March 23. They will nevertheless be able to keep their respective machines in operation until a final decision is made.
If Anne Hidalgo has her internal support, the municipal council remains relatively divided on the question, which makes the organization of a referendum a little more legitimate. The socialist mayor hopes that her arguments will hit home with the inhabitants. She criticizes, in fact, self-service scooters for cluttering roads and especially sidewalks and causing many traffic accidents in addition to the danger they represent for their own users and pedestrians.
Source : Le Parisien-Today in France
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