Image: Image: Lime E-scooters
The City Of Melbourne on Tuesday voted to ban rental e-scooters from Melbourne CBD. A motion to scrap the contracts with e-scooter providers Neuron and Lime was passed in a council meeting 6-4.
Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece, previously a supporter of the two-year trial of rental e-scooters, who moved the motion at the council meeting, claimed he was “fed up with the bad behaviour that has been putting our community at risk.”
The companies have been given 30 days to remove the e-scooters from Melbourne CBD. The decision comes just ahead of the council elections scheduled for October 2025.
Mayor’s Change Of Heart
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan questioned the Lord Mayor’s “change of heart” and urged the council to reconsider its decision and reverse the vote. The state government had last month announced it would permanently legalise share-hire e-scooters across the state after the successful two-year trial. The government said its new rules, which would come into effect in October 2024, would mandate new safety technologies and tougher penalties for those who flout traffic laws.
Reece had stood with the Premier, supposedly backing the decision, while calling for tougher rules to penalise rule breakers.
The Lord Mayor then pointed out that since the start of the trial approximately 9 million e-scooter trips have been taken in Melbourne.
Mayor Reece had also credited e-scooters with reducing car usage in Melbourne. Around 30 percent of users in the CBD chose e-scooters over cars – “meaning 3 million less car trips and less congestion on our roads,” the Lord Mayor said.
E-Scooter Ban Motion Questioned
Councillor Rohan Leppert said he was no e-scooter fanatic, but questioned the process followed to introduce the motion with less than 24-hours-notice.
“My argument was essentially that it was procedurally unfair on the operators, on neighbouring councils, on the State, and on the people of Melbourne (especially those who rely on e-scooters to travel safely and as an alternative to transport modes that increase congestion) to torpedo the trial with less than 24 hours notice,” Councillor Leppert said in a post on Facebook.
“I agreed that we needed a circuit breaker, and to acknowledge the sheer frustration of many that the long and ever-extending trial was generating, but that the right way to go about that was to consider the data, make a sober analysis of the benefits and costs (all of them!) and – if and only if there was support from a critical mass of contiguous inner metro councils – to pursue a competitive procurement process. Such a process could have properly tested the viability and safety of a long-term e-scooter share hire scheme, and provided a genuine opportunity to test the collective view of Melburnians,” added Leppert, who suggested a circuit breaker instead of an outright ban on e-scooters.
Councillor Jamal Hakim, said he had listened to both sides of the argument and slammed the knee-jerk ban. “A knee-jerk reaction without taking proper time to implement measures that mean a safer city for both pedestrians and e-scooter users is, frankly, not the right thing to do,” Cr. Hakim said in a social media video.
E-Scooters Legalised
Victoria introduced share-hire e-scooters on a trial basis in 2022 in the Melbourne CBD, and neighbouring City of Port Phillip and City of Yarra. The program has been beset with detractors from the get-go, who pointed to some e-scooter riders blatantly flouting traffic laws.
A police crackdown in May 2024 saw over 300 infringements being issued to e-scooter users in Melbourne. The offences ranged from failure to wear helmets, and using footpaths, to flouting red traffic lights.
Last month, the government proposed new rules that would come into effect from October 2024. Riders caught without a helmet would face a £395 fine, up from £247, while speeding would incur a £346 penalty. Underage riders and those using footpaths can expect a fine of around £296.
The other rules said that riders must be at least 16 years old, must wear a helmet, not ride on footpaths, and should not drink and drive. E-scooters must also not travel at more than 20km/h, and can only be ridden on roads with a maximum speed limit of 60km/h or less.
