DENVER — Three Denver City Council members are leading the charge to address the city's growing e-scooter problem.
Under the current City of Denver ordinance, scooters must be ridden on the street. However, that rule seems to be glossed over by many scooter users.
“People ride scooters all the time in places that are really meant for pedestrians,” said Denver City Councilman Chris Hinds, who has been working on the scooter problem for three years. “People place scooters all the time in places that really aren't meant for anyone, like in the Platte, or on sidewalks, or curb ramps, or in front of businesses.”
Then there's the scooter accidents.
According to a spokesperson, Denver Health saw 45 scooter-related patient encounters in its emergency department and urgent care centers in January, down from 65 encounters seen in Jan. 2024. However, the spokesperson said there's no way to distinguish e-scooter incidents from accidents involving mobility scooters.
In 2024, Denver Health saw 1,962 total encounters. The spokesperson said the most common injuries were bone fractures, lacerations, joint pain and sprains and head injuries.
On Monday, Denver City Councilmembers Chris Hinds, Darrell Watson and Sarah Parady presented a potential solution.
- Read his proposal below
The proposal focuses on mandatory sidewalk riding technology, mandatory dock zones and education/ reporting.
“Four years ago, the scooter vendors said that the technology existed on paper, but not in reality,” said Hinds. “Today, the two vendors that are here in the city are already rolling out sidewalk riding technology and mandatory docking.”
Mandatory docking makes it so that riders would be required to leave scooters in a specific location to end the ride. Hinds said designated stations would be set up where riders would be able to drop off and pick up their e-scooters.
Mandatory docking technology is already in place in parts of Chicago and San Francisco.
Meanwhile, sidewalk riding technology allows scooters to detect whether they are being ridden on a sidewalk. If a scooter is on a sidewalk, it would cap the scooter’s speed and emit audible warning sounds.
Hinds said the sidewalk riding technology would share data with the city.
“This will give us the data to know where are people riding in bike lanes, which is where we want them and where are people riding on the sidewalk,” he said. “Then we can use that data to inform how we change our urban design.”
The new data could be used to determine which sidewalks need to be fixed and what areas of the city may need new or updated bike lanes.
In the presentation, the council members also asked for a discussion about sobriety tests for riders as well as fines.
The group hopes to conduct community meetings about potential scooter solutions between March and April and put legislation before the full city council in June or July.
Denver7's Sydney Isenberg contributed to this report.
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