The city is reducing the number of scooters across town, and implementing some new rules for safety and accessibility.
Walking downtown or anywhere with a cluster of businesses, restaurants and other places of entertainment means an e-scooter is often nearby. They're sometimes found lying on their side and blocking sidewalks. Some have even been dumped in Lady Bird Lake and ditches. “We have arrived at a place where we can provide and assure quality services, address the safety concerns, and address the just general overall proliferation and concentration and clustering of these devices throughout this city,” he said.Originally, Mendoza said, the city had three vendors — Bird, Lime and Link — in Austin. The city permitted more than 14,000 scooters between the vendors, with up to 5,000 allowed downtown.
“We will continue to monitor going forward — every six months — on the number of permitted devices along with flexible understanding that large events like South by Southwest and ACL drive up the demand for these devices,” Mendoza said. “We will make special allowances to provide those.”Mendoza said part of addressing the challenges with scooters is also about speed and assigning designated areas for the devices once a trip is complete.