Hire e-scooters are set to disappear from Melbourne streets after a controversial move that has been labelled a “knee-jerk reaction”.
The City of Melbourne on Tuesday night voted to scrap its contracts with Lime and Neuron, giving them 30 days to remove their scooters from within the council’s borders.
That means they’re all but certain to be removed before council elections in October.
“This was an opportunity to end the havoc on Melbourne’s footpaths and make our city safe again,” Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicolas Reece said in a press conference on Wednesday.
“I’ve heard in recent days from residents, from traders, from visitors to Melbourne, literally begging us to bring the trial to an end to make our city safe again. And that’s what council voted to do last night.”
Neuron and Lime have been given 30 days to remove their e-scooters from the City of Melbourne’s borders. Source: AAP / Diego Fedele
Reece was initially a supporter of the e-scooter trial when it started in 2022.
Neighbouring councils, the City of Yarra and the City of Port Phillip, are continuing their e-scooter trials in conjunction with the state government.
The Victorian government last month announced that hire e-scooter schemes could operate across the state from October.
Premier Jacinta Allan told reporters on Wednesday the ban was an “interesting” change of heart from Reece and urged the council to reconsider its position.
Allan said she hoped it would not come to the state government having to intervene.
“They’re a government in their own right; I would much prefer that councils come to their own common sense decision,” Allan said.
Melbourne is not the first major city to ban e-scooter hires. Paris held a public vote on the matter and outlawed e-scooter hires in September 2023.
A Lime spokesperson said “election-year politics played a significant role” in the move to ban the schemes.
“Lime will continue to operate shared e-bikes across Melbourne, as well as e-scooters in the surrounding City of Yarra and Port Phillip,” the spokesperson said.
Jayden Bryant, Neuron Mobility’s general manager for Australia and New Zealand, said the ban was a “rushed decision” and agreed with the premier’s remarks.
“We agree that there is an urgent need for co-ordination and alignment between the state government and the City of Melbourne to conduct the necessary considerations and evaluations one would expect before such a drastic decision is implemented,” Bryant said.
The e-scooter divide
Tuesday’s council meeting heard from scores of Melburnians, including emergency physician Sarah Whitelaw, who told the meeting the Royal Melbourne Hospital had recorded an “exponential increase” in e-scooter injuries since February 2022 to around 20 to 30 per month.
“Our team calculated the cost to Royal Melbourne of e-scooter injuries in 2022 to be over $1.9 million,” she said.
Councillor Elizabeth Mary O’Sullivan-Myles did not support the motion and said that while a ban might be needed in the future, there was still time to improve the scheme.
“It’s important to remember that council cannot ban all e-scooters from the city,” she said. “We’re only talking about the shared trial scheme; so the risk still remains.”
SBS News spoke to hire e-scooter users in Melbourne CBD.
One man with a broken ankle using a scooter to get around said: “I’m crippled and I don’t have access to a wheelchair, so I’ve got to use the scooter. It’s my only way around.”
But another user said: “You don’t know if they’re supposed to be on the pathway or the roads and you actually need to have a decent bit of knowledge to ride on the roads and in the city.
“Honestly, [the ban is] probably for the best.”
Associate professor Alexa Delbosc from Monash University’s Insitute of Transport Studies described the ban as a “knee-jerk reaction”.
She said that recent research by the Institute showed many trips people took on hire e-scooters did not have a public transport substitute.
“You would have to walk for one or two kilometres to get where you want to go,” she said. “Our trains and trams don’t necessarily go where people want to go.”
E-scooter hires are available in several other Australian CBDs, including Brisbane, Darwin, and Adelaide. In Sydney, they are only available to hire in the southern suburb of Kogarah.
In the remote Kimberley town of Broome, Western Australia, the council started a trial of e-scooter hires in May 2023 with Australia’s largest micro-mobility hire company, Beam.
The scooters and their riders are a regular topic of debate on the town’s popular community Facebook page, where they get mixed reviews.
One user wrote: “Having limited public transport in Broome they are good for tourists but as a disabled person who relies on a mobility scooter for transport, they are awful and a nuisance.”
Another said: “Many find it difficult to get around after hours as we also have a limited taxi service. [The scooters] seem to be a great initiative for visitors as it provides a cheap option to get around,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Shire of Broome said in a statement: “With few public transport options there seems to be significant uptake.
“However, like everywhere else, there are general concerns about how and where people park them.”
Locals have been asked for feedback in a consultation with the Shire of Broome which ends this month.
About a third (30 per cent) of Beam riders in Broome commute for work or study, and the average ride was 2.5 kilometers, higher than the Australian average of 2km, reflecting the users’ need to travel larger distances, according to data from Beam.
With additional reporting by the Australian Associated Press.