Attendees: Matthew Ables; Andrew Ittigson; Jack Gryczynski; Vince Perini; Tom Grant; Bud Melton; and John Clarkson; and DART Innovative Services Planner Bakari Height. On behalf of the city were Transportation Department Director Mike Rogers; Executive Manager Towfiq Khan; Assistant Director Brita Andercheck, Ph.D.; and Project Coordinator Jared White.
Mike Rogers thanked GPC for this collaboration, and framed the objective for the morning as sharing some of the city’s experience since the first Dockless Vehicle Permit ordinance was drafted (issued 6/29/2018), and expressing interest in obtaining our input as his department drafts a new ordinance for when the current one expires this November.
City staff laid out the City’s experience with dockless bikes, then scooters over the past year. As use of these vehicles – especially the e-scooters – has exploded in downtown and other parts of the city, along with the beneficial uses have come a host of complaints and concerns. These must be addressed in the new ordinance going forward.
Safety ranks as the number one source of concern. Despite the operators’ advice, e-scooters (which can reach 15 mph) are commonly operated without helmets, and on sidewalks, which is illegal throughout most of downtown.
Motorists; however, complain that scooter users using the streets often ignore basic vehicular rules of signaling and lane use. People are getting hurt using them. Staff shared a graphic and said that Baylor Hospital has begun formally tracking emergency room visits and hospitalizations related to the use of these devices, and report a spike in facial, extremity, and brain trauma by users of e-scooters in particular.
A city streetcar reportedly was hit by a scooter operator recently. Jared White highlighted the inherent physical problems with operating these high center-of-gravity, short-wheelbase devices, especially during nighttime hours. Accident data indicates that younger males, riding at night to have the highest risk of injury.
Enforcement of reasonable safety rules is another issue. It is the city’s position that operators must be the first line of the enforcement of proper use. Dallas Police officers have other priorities to maintain public order. Without the help of dockless operators (Lime, Bird, Ofo, etc.) in enforcing their own rules it doesn’t seem likely that change will occur.
Aesthetics is another concern. The scooters and bikes are often seen haphazardly “parked” (as if abandoned) by users on city streets “This detracts from our citizens’ experience of their city, and trashes its image for visitors,” said Khan.
Staff reported a changing relationship with dockless operators since the ordinance was passed. At first, it was quite contentious with operators refusing to share little, if any of their user data. Operators were recorded making extensive promises during City Council’s consideration of the ordinance, promising to provide vehicles in underserved parts of the city, and keeping unused vehicles properly collected and stored on the streets – and in particular, retrieving broken or abandoned devices.
Despite those promises, the City has received many complaints of vehicles being dumped in parks, lakes and creeks, laying about on sidewalks, blocking access for handicapped citizens and so forth.
Andercheck said the vehicle operators now share more of their data, and are allowing limited API access, which has been useful. But as far as providing better user education about helmets and where to ride, or policing unused vehicles, they have generally not lived up to their side of the agreement while profiting from use of the city’s right-of-ways.
It’s believed that the deeper driver for the dockless industry is the sale of data, not vehicle miles per se. Operators don’t seem to care if they’re renting scooters or bikes or mini-cars. What’s wanted is data and apps being used by personal cellphones.
The City’s aim all along has been to shift the transit paradigm from a dominant, auto-centric one – to include bikes and other micro-mobility options, particularly within the “first mile-last mile” use cases. Mr. Rogers and his staff believe that a mix of transportation modes will best-serve the city and the region in future decades.
The City deliberately took an open approach to dockless in 2018 – by not capping vehicle numbers or operators, and by keeping permit fees low to encourage usage. The new ordinance may need to be provisional as well, given the rate of change in technology and business models, but it must deal adequately with these emergent issues.
According to Khan and Andercheck, Los Angeles currently has the most sophisticated regulatory approach to dockless. They invited us to examine what’s been done there to regulate micro-mobility while applying data in innovative ways to make that city’s entire transportation system more effective.
The meeting, originally scheduled for an hour, ran nearly another hour beyond and engaged everyone in an informative and spirited conversation.
The department said it recognizes that having engagement and support of GDPC will be helpful in gaining Council approval on what may be a politically charged issue when it comes up again this Fall.
They have invited us into the drafting process for the new ordinance, and shared background documents to get us started.
Andercheck agreed to meet with our full Task Force at our June 21st meeting; and in the meantime - to meet with us after we’ve collected more data and gained additional insights into how the ordinance can be improved. Tentative scheduling for this meeting is underway.
