RIP e-scooters, it's been real. We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but it seems like our rental e-scooter era is over. The City of Melbourne council has suddenly voted to ban them from the CBD's streets, and they'll be completely gone by the end of this year.
It's a ban that's come out of the blue – apparently, e-scooter rental companies were working alongside the City of Melbourne to devise new ways to make the service safer, with new measures set to make Melbourne's e-scooter scheme the most regulated in the world. Private e-scooters were only permanently made legal in Victoria last month.
But Melbourne's new mayor Nicholas Reece has backflipped to ban them, putting forward a motion to cancel the current contacts with e-scooter rental companies like Neuron and Lime in a council meeting on August 13, which passed with a majority vote.
There are a few reasons for the ban, including safety concerns for both pedestrians and riders. Residents of the CBD have complained en masse about the lawlessness of e-scooter riders who endanger others by riding on the footpath in pedestrian-dense areas. Plus, thousands of riders have been caught by police not wearing helmets and driving while intoxicated.
Rental e-scooters were introduced to our city in 2022 as part of a two-year trial, and current contracts were due to expire in six months – but the issues caused by e-scooters were so dire that the ban couldn't wait. Now, the companies will have mere weeks to remove hundreds of e-scooters from the CBD.
City of Melbourne mayor Nicholas Reece said that safety was the council's number one priority when making the decision.
“The safety of Melburnians is being constantly jeopardised by riders doing the wrong thing... Residents, visitors and traders have had enough."
For avid e-scooter users, it's not all bad news. At this stage, Melburnians will still be able to use them in the City of Yarra and City of Port Phillip municipalities, which include suburbs in the inner north and inner south.
It seems Melburnians just can't get it together when it comes to two-wheeled rentals – remember the oBike drama of yore? This is why we can't have nice things.
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