Less e-scooter dumping on sidewalks, say advocate, city councillor

In the past year, Lelainia Lloyd has done a number of media interviews on what was an overlooked issue: people renting e-scooters and then dumping them on Coquitlam sidewalks, making them less accessible for people with disabilities.

Coquitlam has been participating in the province’s e-scooter pilot project since 2023 to see if e-scooters should be authorized for permanent use in B.C. The goal is to increase zero-emission transportation options and reduce reliance on vehicles. 

But as a wheelchair user, e-scooters have caused a direct impediment to Lloyd and other folks with mobility disabilities. She said it was common for people park e-scooters on sidewalks, meaning she’d have to pivot off the path to navigate around them.

“Everywhere I go, they’re just dumped all over the city,” Lloyd told the Dispatch last year. “And I’m lucky, because I have a power chair. If I had a manual chair, it would be that much harder.”

But since then, the disability advocate and educator has noticed an improvement in Coquitlam.

“I used to see them dumped all over the place, and now I don’t,” Lloyd said.

Lloyd suggests that the city reducing its e-scooter providers from two to one has helped. She said it has made “a huge difference” in how many e-scooters are in one parking area.

“It used to just be crazy, and now it’s very reasonable,” she said. 

With two providers, the parking spaces would overflow, Lloyd said.

“And then people would, I guess out of frustration, just sort of stop them wherever they felt like, or they’d be tipped over onto the sidewalk and blocking the path for everybody.”

Lloyd added hat some of her media appearances might have helped people understand how to report misparked e-scooters, so that the provider can come and deal with it.

“There’s growing pains with everything, and it’s not that I don’t want people to be able to use micro transportation. That helps get cars off the road,” Lloyd said. “I feel like some things could have been handled a little bit better.”

Matt Djonlic, a Coquitlam city councillor and chair of the city’s accessibility and inclusion advisory committee (which Lloyd also sits on), agreed that the providers are improving at picking up dumped scooters.

He also said that the provider has adding geocoding into their scooters — so that they slow down to a halt when used on sidewalks — has helped clear them off spaces they shouldn’t be.

“The more challenging piece is what even the private scooters, which, of course, are private. And people purchase and so we can’t regulate them in quite the same way that the rental companies can,” said  Coun. Djonlic.

To combat this, Djonlic said that the city has also worked on educating young people about the proper way to use e-scooters in a way that is respectful to pedestrians and other road users.

And he also added that “the novelty is probably worn off for some people who are just want to go for a joy ride”

“I think much more we’re seeing them being used for their intended purpose, which is to be that connection between SkyTrain or buses and home to help with that last leg of the journey or first leg of the journey.”