“Summers are excellent in Edmonton and getting around outside. Using active transportation is not only good for our minds and our bodies, it’s good for the environment”
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Streetside rental e-scooters and now e-bikes have started rolling out in Edmonton, but complaints from citizens last year mean fewer will be on the roads this summer.
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The city announced Friday it landed on two vendors to offer a cumulative total of up to 1,500 e-scooters and 400 e-bikes until the end of 2023, significantly lower than the 4,000 e-scooters ordered by vendors early last year. Bird began putting out its fleet on Friday and Lime arrives next week.
Spin, which rented out e-scooters last year, will not return.
Jessica Lamarre, director of safe mobility and traffic operations, said using a competitive bid to choose just two companies is behind the delay. Last year rentals were available by late March.
The city experimented with allowing the market to determine how many to offer, but they landed on a smaller fleet size factoring in complaints and how many are available in other similar Canadian cities, Lamarre said.
“We had lots of complaints from Edmontonians about the clutter of the number of vehicles moving around, and about the way that they were used and so we started to reduce that fleet size,” Lamarre told reporters on Friday.
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She acknowledged scooters are out a bit later than the city would have liked, but Lamarre said she’s excited they’re back now. They create an alternative mode of transportation and reduce traffic congestion, she said.
“Summers are excellent in Edmonton and … using active transportation is not only good for our minds and our bodies, it’s good for the environment,” she said.
“It activates our streets in an entirely different way. So they’re fun, for sure, to get around, but they’re also an option to help connect people, for people who are trying to get around.”
E-scooters and e-bikes are not allowed on sidewalks in Edmonton. Riders can use them on bike lanes, shared-use pathways, and on roads with up to a 50 km/hr speed limit.
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‘Since the horse and carriage’
Coun. Michael Janz, who attended the announcement, called himself an e-bike enthusiast. He’s excited Edmontonians get a chance to try another climate-friendly way of getting around before, perhaps, buying one themselves.
“This is going to be a transformation in transportation that hasn’t happened since the horse and carriage. You can bike across the river valley on an electric bike with pedal assist, get up and down both sides of the hill and not even break a sweat. It’s going to be so convenient,” he said.
“There’s always going to be growing pains with this small program, but what this is going to mean to the future of transportation in our city — it’s going to be a game-changer.”
‘These are not toys’: helmet recommended
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Helmets aren’t mandatory but the city recommends people wear them — as does Edmonton emergency room doctor Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti.
Last summer, Francescutti saw at least one person a week injured while driving an e-scooter — which he compares to a motorcycle, but a little slower.
“These are not toys,” Francescutti said, adding that people who ride should get familiar with them and use caution. “They go quick, and when you fall, you can really hurt yourself.”
From minor scrapes and bruises, all the way to broken bones and bad concussions, speed is usually a factor in the injuries he’s seen at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. Often, Francescutti sees young men ending up in the ER after crashing an e-scooter while riding with a group of friends.
“What ends up happening—peer pressure. They start racing them and they don’t mix well with traffic either,” he said.
“At bare minimum, have a helmet on when you’re using them — and good luck.”
Data from police collision reports in 2021 shows eight e-scooter crashes that resulted in three minor and three major injuries in 2021, and two incidents of property damage. More research is being done by the city, Alberta Health Services, and the University of Alberta, to understand the full extent of these types of injuries.
