E-Scooter Parking

Protection of Highways By-law 25-2010 prohibits "personal property of any description" occupying or being placed in the right-of-way unless permitted by an encroachment agreement or by-law. For abandoned or improperly parked bicycles in the right-of-way, this by-law is enforced generally on a complaint basis.

Administration recommends that the current approach used for bicycles parked in the right-of-way also be used for e-scooters for the time being, and that the follow-up report should either confirm that this approach should continue or recommend changes to the Corporation's approach for abandoned or improperly parked scooters in the right-ofway.

Protection of Highways By-law 25-2010 also provides an enforcement mechanism to prevent unlicensed or unapproved scooter share services from using the right-of-way for parking or storage of e-scooters.

A report will be provided from Administration to a future meeting of the Environment, Transportation and Public Safety Standing Committee regarding bike share and scooter share services; this report will identify appropriate locations where scooter share parking should and should not be provided in the right-of-way, which will be incorporated into that report's recommendations.

Traffic Signals

Other jurisdictions with e-scooters have identified that e-scooters and riders cannot be detected reliably by traffic signal detectors, regardless of the type of detector. Administration has consulted with the City's traffic signal suppliers, who have confirmed that this issue will affect traffic signals in Windsor.

Administration will work with its traffic signal suppliers to address this issue, but based on consultation to date, it is unlikely that a solution will be developed in the short term.

Risk Analysis:

In Ontario, a 5-year e-scooter pilot will begin on January 1, 2020. The pilot project will evaluate the operation of use of e-scooters in Ontario. The City of Windsor will also monitor the operation and use of e-scooters within the Municipality. Although there is no direct risk to the Municipality by permitting the use of e-scooters in the public right of way, there are bound to be collisions between e-scooters and vehicles, pedestrians, animals, etc. which could result in injuries and potential claims against the City.

Operational risk due to abandoned or improperly parked e-scooters is currently unknown. The workload and space requirements for impounding and storage of improperly parked or abandoned scooters has not been determined. Windsor Police Service staff have indicated that available space in their impound and evidence facility is limited and may not be able to accommodate a significant number of impounded escooters and that alternate arrangements (e.g. secure storage space at a City facility) may be required.