Have thoughts on e-scooter safety, parking in Austin? Here's how to weigh in
AUSTIN (KXAN) — The city of Austin is in the process of revisiting its rules surrounding electric scooters and e-bikes — and wants community input into how its micromobility program looks moving forward.
City leaders launched a shared e-scooter and e-bike survey to gather public intel into the usage and availability, safety and parking in Austin. An open house will be held on March 24 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Austin Public Library's Carver branch, located at 1161 Angelina Street in east Austin.
"We want to know how you use e-scooters and e-bikes, your thoughts on safety and what you think about parking the devices," city officials wrote in an Austin Mobility newsletter blurb Monday. "The goal is to ensure Austin's transportation system gives everyone safe and more convenient ways to get around town."
Currently, Austin is home to two shared mobility providers: Bird and Lime. Bird operates a fleet of 3,000 scooters in town, while Lime's Austin fleet includes 3,700 scooters and 180 e-bikes.
Past changes to e-scooter, e-bike operations in Austin
Last March, the Austin Transportation and Public Works Department unveiled several changes to scooter use in Austin, including a citywide reduction that capped e-scooters in Austin from 8,700 devices to 6,700 e-scooters and a downtown cap reduction from 4,500 to 2,250. The department flagged last spring concerns with serious injuries and safety issues linked to e-scooter users.
Despite the overall and downtown device caps, officials noted exceptions for larger scale events, such as South by Southwest Conference & Festivals as well as the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Data provided by Lime Tuesday found an 86% increase in ridership in Austin during this year's SXSW, with more than 139,000 trips logged by riders between March 7 and March 15.
“Austin’s festivals drive some of Lime’s highest ridership weeks ever, and we went all out to prepare for festival season this year with record-breaking results," said Chris Betterton, Lime's senior operations manager, in the release. "We credit the city of Austin for their close collaboration in creating a transportation plan that helped attendees and residents get where they were going safely and sustainably. We’ll take all the lessons learned this year and apply them to make next year’s festival season even better."
Following the spring 2024 fleet size reduction, new findings in December revealed a slight downturn in citywide trips but improvements in minimizing device clutter on city sidewalks, curbs and right of ways, officials said.
“The new fleet cap has had minimal impact on the individual vendors while leading to less clutter on downtown sidewalks and increasing trips per device,” the December memo read in part.
Changes needed to bolster city's crash data tracking incidents involving e-scooters
Back in August 2024, an audit from the Austin Auditor's Office highlighted faults in the city's e-scooter crash data tracking system, noting the city had "a lack of complete and reliable data" that, in turn, impacts the city's ability to make safety changes or recommendations. Those faults impacted the city's capability of detecting how many e-scooter crashes have happened, possible trends and patterns linked to crashes and properly offering educational outreach or recommending rule changes.
The audit recommended the Austin Transportation and Public Works Department work to define terms like e-scooter, collision and crash in its protocol and collaborate with APD and ATCEMS to “establish standardized coding for e-scooter crashes, with the goal to enhance safety related data.”
It also suggested the city’s transportation department continue to meet with e-scooter vendors on a monthly basis to discuss continuous or growing problems, outline possible solutions for minimizing those issues and communicating with them on any e-scooter operational changes at the city level. Those recommendations came with a suggested implementation deadline of March 2025.