| Love them or loathe them, York’s electric scooters are here to stay for now and there will be even more of them buzzing about as the City of York Council has agreed to extend the trial for a further 6 months. |
| The decision was made at an Executive Member for Transport Decision Session today [Tuesday 22 June], which means the council will continue to participate in the Department for Transport (DfT) micro-mobility trial with TIER Mobility. |
The DfT has approved an extension of the current e-scooter trials taking place across the country until the 31 March 2022. The extension of the trial includes York, a city which has been part of the trial group since October 2020.
This extension will provide extra time for all trial areas to reach expected capacity as covid restrictions continue to ease. In addition, the extended period will allow for the DfT to gather additional data to inform future legislation.
The service is currently provided by TIER mobility and since the service went live around 10,000 unique riders have made almost 40,000 trips around the city using an e-scooter or e-bike, covering over 140,000 miles of York’s roads and cycle paths.
The six month extension of the trial is also accompanied by an expansion of the maximum number of e-scooters now permitted in the city, following the successful take-up of the service.
The maximum number has been raised from 700 to 1,000
Andy D’Agorne, Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Transport said he had not been convinced by the idea at first but now he saw it as a good way to allow residents to try out new forms of transport.
Owning your own personal e-scooter is not legal yet but if it happens then residents will have a better idea about the safety issues of riding them he argues.
“York is a great location for relatively short trips on foot, by bike or scooter whether you are visiting, studying, working or living here.
“E-scooters and e-bikes are rapidly becoming popular alongside more conventional cycles in a city which has a cycling heritage and existing network of routes.
“This micro mobility trial is encouraging more people in York to try out sustainable travel options as well as providing important research to government which will help shape transport legislation for years to come.”
He accepted that there were issues over the way that some people used the scooters and pledged to contniue to work with TIER to clamp down on danagerous riding.