The City of San Diego’s new rules on scooters went into effect Monday, July 1. Please contact your Mayor’s office to report any violations.
The new regulations include:
Speed limits: In specific geofenced areas, scooters cannot go faster than 8 mph.
In pedestrian-only geofenced areas: scooters are limited to 3 mph with a push message notifying riders to leave that area.
Geofencing in effect for the following areas:
- beach-area boardwalks,
- Balboa Park,
- NTC Park,
- Mission Bay Park,
- Petco Park and
- the pedestrian-only locations, including
- North/South Embarcadero,
- MLK Jr. Promenade, and
- La Piazza della Famiglia.
Staging: In the beach areas, scooters only permitted in groups of up to four, with 40 feet in between each group. The City will identify corral locations and will require their use.
Rider parking: riders are prohibited from ending a ride in specific geofenced areas, including beach area boardwalks.
Education: messages on local and state laws required in smartphone applications, on scooter-labels with age requirements and how riding on the sidewalk is illegal.
Per device fee: $150 annually will be assessed per scooter. A reduction of $15 per device will be offered for operators offering a qualified equity program.
Equity programs: discounts, equitable distribution, credit-card free unlock or mobile-device free unlock.
Data sharing: the scooter companies are supposed to share their data with the City about ridership, parking, paths of travel and more.
Indemnify insurance: scooter companies required to indemnify the City from liability and to hold a $2 million per occurrence, $4 million aggregate and $4 million umbrella insurance policy.
Performance bond: scooter companies required to pay a “Safety Deposit” – $65 for each device in fleet – to be held in the event the company leaves the market without its devices.
And now for a comment:
The final element of the new ordinance will charge dockless companies an annual $150 per-device fee. The Mayor has convinced the City Council that this per scooter fee will “act as a de facto cap on scooter numbers.”
This is crazy and reflects Faulconer’s laizze-faire attitude toward capitalist enterprises that take over public space without debate and sometimes without notice.
Do you know how much $150 is to a billion-dollar corporation?
This is and has been the weak link in Faulconer’s chain of new rules – no limits on the numbers of scooters each company can dump and toss onto our streets, corners, sidewalks and parks.
Remember, if you see any violations of the above regs, please contact Mayor Faulconer’s office:
- (619) 236-6330
- kevinfaulconer@sandiego.gov
News source:
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
There are 10-15 scooters on the corner of Point Loma Avenue and Sunset Cliffs Blvd.
every morning. This location was not on the chart presented to the planning board. With streets 40 feet wide, this permits scooters on every corner, but they often exceed groups of four. Just one data point. From the article: “Staging: In the beach areas, scooters only permitted in groups of up to four, with 40 feet in between each group. The City will identify corral locations and will require their use.”
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I hope the city has upped their liability insurance on this cluster duck. If one of these scooters crashes into me or mine or makes us trip I’ll find the dirtiest damn, accident, ambulance chasing lawyer I can find (turnabout is fair play). Vern, to expect that I now need to keep scootpoop information to police this untenable situation is absurd. For those that are disabled or elderly these scooters are a plague.
Wow. I’m not a fan either but you sure do like hyperbole. The sky is not falling. It’s just an electric scooter.
Michael, it may be “just an electric scooter” to you, but for some of us older, slower, not quite so flexible folks the danger is real. Have come close to being run over by seawall, by tower bathrooms, and up & down Newport more times than I can currently count. Almost tripped over piles of abandoned scooters while trying to get out of way of on-coming scooters on 2 or 3 occasions. No, I’m not totally decrepit. Still walk a couple of miles daily – just not at the pace I did 5 or 10 years ago. Still trying to live and shop local without being run over.
Not hyperbole Michael. The scooters are a legitimate hazard for those groups I mentioned let alone the general public. I don’t believe I said anything about the sky falling, nice dramatic effect though.
I’m sorry. I must have misread your post. I thought you compared the scooters to the black plague and threatened to sue the city if you happen to trip over one.
“You kids better get off my lawn. I’m suing and calling the mayor’s office about this! Because the mayor’s number is definitely the write one to call for code enforcement issues!”
Well, that sounds completely unworkable. I can’t imagine enforcement will be any easier either.
Oh Lordy, so sick of this topic already! Shame on SD City Council! Its a national virus, not just San Diego!! What or who gave the right for these 1/2 dozen+ companies, and here are some-
https://chi.streetsblog.org/2019/06/11/ready-or-not-10-different-scooter-companies-hit-the-streets-starting-saturday/
the right to bulldoze into City councils, plunk themselves down, and say, “Ok, what you going to give us?”!!!! These are energy -sucking toys. Why should I have to relinquish my taxpayer’s public space to park and enforce these things?!
Worse, you can bet anyone who downloads the rental app will also be ticking that “scooter at your own risk” fine print, which means that when the scooter hits a tree-stumped uneven pavement and the rider goes down and breaks a leg, whether sober or inebriated, that lawsuit will end up in my taxpayer budget.
Anyone who tries to green-wash this virus is simply not operating on all cylinders. If these companies want to flood the street and markets with their pseudo-hip venture, let them rent their own space for docking, let them hire their own staff for policing and picking up the discarded devices, and let them pay for any remediation required.
So disheartening to read, after all the cogently prepared and offered discourse on the impact, that municipalities have totally caved on the valid push back from constituents!
You want an e-scooter? So just buy one and park it and charge it in own your own space! :(
Exactly! We also need special “docking areas” for cars. Never more than 4 on one street! The way those things just park on public property burns me up!
And did you know that some cars are owned by businesses? That try to make money?Well I never!
The only acceptable progressive way to get rich is to buy a $1.5 million dollar house in 1974 for $40,000. New money is so gauche. Wait you say you weren’t even alive yet in 1974? Well maybe you should get a place in Santee, pleb.
Huh, ZZ? Not getting that point at all. If a for-profit company wants to flog their product, whether its the latest app or some new widget, by all means be my guest and good luck. But not at my expense! Why should these companies, and not others who might want to sell incense on the corner, or lemonade, or solar-powered wrist bands that track your heart-rate, be allowed to encroach on public space without appropriate leasing of such, or permits, or (better yet) rejection b/c they need to provide their own infrastructure to promote their entity?!
Hullo, its a swindle that’s been sold as somehow in the ‘greater good”. Not.