Parisians are invited to participate in a local referendum on April 2 to decide the fate of self-service electric scooters. These controversial vehicles could simply disappear.
The future of self-service electric scooters (free-floating) will be sealed for good in the coming months. The town hall of Paris plans to organize a local referendum on April 2, 2023 to decide on the debate around these means of transport, which have flourished in recent years in the capital. And for the mayor, it’s seen all: it must stop.
” We have a real problem with free-floating scooters. They clutter the streets and the model is not ecological. So I’m going to ask the Parisians the question to find out what they want. My opinion: we stop », said Anne Hidalgo on Twitter on January 14, pointing to an interview she gave to Le Parisien.
Should we continue with free-floating scooters (self-service)?
The referendum will be aimed primarily at Parisians, since it is a decision concerning their municipality. It is not planned in the state to involve Ile-de-France residents, and even less tourists, even if they are also populations who can use these vehicles when they go to Paris.
Unless the ballot is extended to other publics, the organization of the ballot in Paris will be like a political election: the inhabitants will have to go in person to their district town hall or to their usual polling station and could vote for those registered on the electoral files. In any case, it is this track that stands out today.
Even if Anne Hidalgo and the members of her team are resolutely hostile to the free-floating electric scooter, the question that should be asked to voters should look like “are we continuing with self-service scooters or not?” “. This is the formulation proposed by Anne Hidalgo during her interview with the Parisian newspaper.
The mayor of Paris has become increasingly critical of these means of transport over time. Among the arguments regularly put forward are the congestion of the sidewalks, even of the roadway, collisions with other people, traffic accidents and a design and operation that is not in line with environmental issues.
The organization of this vote, the outlines of which will have to be clarified in the coming weeks, is part of the increasingly strong pressure that the mayor of Paris is putting on the operators of these free-floating machines — Lime, Dott, and third parties. In 2021, it had demanded speed regulation in certain Parisian places – more than 700 zones are now concerned.
Subsequently, other rules were enacted, ranging from the compulsory registration of all vehicles to the prohibition of driving for minors, through the financing of parking spaces, the launch of an awareness campaign and excluding customers who break the rules. In all, eleven measures were announced.
The referendum planned by the mayor of Paris will only concern fleets operated by private companies. Electric scooters belonging to private individuals are not affected – except for the traffic rules which they must follow too. These machines are considered less problematic, in particular because their owners rarely leave them in the middle of the street.
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