More than 8,000 trips and dozens of service calls for first week of Brampton e-scooter program

Brampton’s e-scooter program is up and running and while thousands have signed up to give them a spin, some residents are finding the two-wheeled wonders to be more of a nuisance.

The City launched a pilot project earlier this month to bring hundreds of electric kick-style scooters to Brampton with the aim of giving residents more mobility options while cutting down on traffic and vehicle emissions.

The e-scooters are available for rent through smartphone apps from three different companies – Neuron Mobility, Bird Canada, and Scooty Mobility – and each provider has its own area of the city to cover.

And while some residents seem quite taken with the new transportation option, others have found them to be a bit of a bother.

Ridership in Brampton has been steady so far with the City saying there were over 4,500 users taking more than 8,800 e-scooter trips in Brampton as of Wednesday (April 12). But some users on social media have complained about e-scooters parked on their property or left laying across Brampton sidewalks.

The city says it has received over 80 inquiries and service request calls to 3-1-1 or by email about the e-scooters in the first week of the program.

The e-scooters are only allowed on roads and banned from Brampton sidewalks. The scooters are limited to a maximum speed of 20 km/h and have also been “geo-fenced” to reduce speeds to 15 km/h when operating in parks, high-pedestrian areas, and paths.

E-scooter cannot be parked where they block the sidewalk path of travel, and must not obstruct features like utility accesses, garbage bins, doorways, or curbside zones reserved for buses, taxis or loading.

Residents are encouraged to contact the scooter provider if they see them parked improperly. Brampton residents with inquiries or who are experiencing issues with the City’s e-scooter pilot program can contact the City by calling 3-1-1 or emailing [email protected].

E-scooter mobility programs have been launched in other Canadian cities, and have sometimes been met with mixed reviews.

A similar program was introduced in Calgary in 2019, and despite a rash of rider injuries when the program first started Calgarians have taken nearly 1.3 million trips on e-scooters every year since. And in Ottawa, 4 to 6 per cent of residents reported using vehicles less in favour of e-scooters, according to Bird Canada.

Earlier this month, residents of Paris, France, voted to ban e-scooter rentals from city streets, making it the first city to reverse course on offering contracts to e-scooter providers.

Last year, the province began a five-year electric kick-scooter pilot project allowing municipalities to enact a by-law to permit and regulate the use of e-scooters.