Toronto one step closer to permitting e-scooters

Two years after council decided to ban e-scooters on Toronto streets, the city is moving one step closer to reversing that decision.

Councillors on the Infrastructure and Environment Committee voted 4-2 Wednesday to direct the city's general manager of transportation services to develop and present recommendations to council for creating an e-scooter program in Toronto. 

Coun. Diane Saxe (Ward 11, University-Rosedale) brought forward the motion and will work with the general manager to develop the recommendations.

"The number of scooters that I'm seeing on the street are exploding and we're not doing anything right now to enforce the [ban]," Saxe said.

"[A city-regulated program] works. It works to get people out of cars. It works to give a mobility option to people who don't otherwise have a mobility option."

The motion passed despite opposition from disability advocates who spoke in favour of the ban, saying the electronic vehicles pose a danger to people with disabilities largely because their silence makes it difficult for people to hear them coming.

"I won't know one's coming until it hits me," David Lepofsky, chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, told the meeting. 

Lepofsky, who is blind, said he's also concerned about scooters strewn across sidewalks being tripping hazards. 

Saxe and members of the e-scooter industry told the committee that technology has been developed to keep the scooters off sidewalks. According to the website of one company who had a representative at the meeting, Bird Canada, scooters can be programmed to emit an audible alert if a user rides on a sidewalk.

Marcia Yale, with the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians, told the committee she doesn't trust that the technology will effectively keep people from riding on the sidewalks. 

"Disabled people, we have enough trouble on our own. We don't need to be used by the e-scooter people as guinea pigs to show you that it is a danger," she said.

Saxe asked city staff whether the disability community is more at risk in the current situation where people are using unregulated rental scooters, or with a program where the city sets rules and conditions.

A staff member responded that both scenarios pose risks to pedestrians. They added that staff received an email on Tuesday from Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city's medical officer of health, saying she supports a continued prohibition of e-scooters by the city.

John Bitove, co-founder of Bird Canada, told the meeting e-scooters could be safe.