Self-service scooters will be limited to 10 km / h in Paris “From the first half of December”, except on some major axes.
Le Monde with AFP.
The three self-service scooter operators present in the capital had announced ten days ago that they would see their speed limited to 10 km / h in 700 areas of Paris. Without giving a specific date for the entry into force of the measure.
The Paris town hall has decided, Thursday, November 25, announcing that the measure would come into force “from the first fortnight of December”. In all the “adjacent streets”, the scooters will be shredded automatically at 10 km / h, while the major axes, in particular those with secure bike paths, will retain their limitation at 20 km / h, said the France– Press (AFP) The Ecologist David Belliard, First Deputy Mayor, Anne Hidalgo (PS), including mobility.
Simplification of the rules, according to the town hall of Paris
In addition to the bike paths, the “interquigital structural tracks” will also be exempt from limitation, as well as the streets where the car traffic remains allowed at 50 km / h, and the bus routes, where the bicycles are allowed, specifies the Town hall. This “order” was passed Wednesday by the city to the three operators who had proposed the establishment for 700 limiting zones of the speed in the capital.
For Mr. Belliard, such a zoning would not be satisfactory because he creates “a Paris Dalmatian”, and would hardly understand the scooters users. By simplifying the rules, the town hall wants to ensure a “better regulation of the public space”, described by the elected representatives like “tense”.
Scooters have been responsible for 298 accidents since the beginning of the year, causing two deaths and 329 wounded. Three hundred and seventy-five accidents had been identified in 2020, including one mortal.
At the end of June, after the death of a 32-year-old Italian, hit by an electric scooter on a pedestrian alley, the Paris town hall had threatened the three private operators allowed not to renew their contract if they did not make progress on the limitation of speed and parking. To date, Mr. Belliard confirms the “five months” extension of these contracts.
The “Promise of Total Freedom” users of self-service scooters “is not tenable,” says David Belliard, who affirms his will “to appease” the sharing of the public space at the approach end-of-year celebrations, where the streets of the capital are filled.
Municipal opposition side, the Mayor LR of 15 e Arrondissement, Philippe Goujon, salutes with the AFP the establishment of this new limitation, which he claims to have proposed there are several weeks. “I did not want to cut up the e in sections,” explains the elected. It nevertheless wishes to go further, “that the city works with the operators”, at the creation of a “street code, or pedestrian code” and that the latter, particularly vulnerable, “be protected”.
Call for tenders for two-wheeled motorized
In this same desire to regulate the self-service means of transport, the Town Hall has also announced a call for competition from operators of motorized two-wheeled, from December 13th. The idea is to “anticipate”, before the situation becomes unmanageable, as it has been for scooters. Five operators are currently present in the capital, but the call for tenders will remember only two or three. The winners will be announced in June, for a beginning of the contract in September.
The selection criteria will be diverse, and linked “to the types of gear, respecting their environmental criteria,” the quality of services, their ability to deploy “and to provide the service,” summarizes Mr. Belliard , while specifying the wish of the municipality to work with companies according to a process of “social improvement” of the framework of its employees. This model has already been followed in 2020, to reduce the number of scooter operators with three in the capital.