Escooter Pilot Project causing frustration for many sidewalk users

In recent years, numerous cities have embarked on pilot projects to evaluate the impact of allowing vendors to rent out e-scooters for use on city streets. Residents are encouraged to submit concerns about the use or placement of these devices directly to the vendors. The vendors claim they are committed to responding to improperly parked or discarded devices within 15 minutes to an hour. During the first year of the pilot project, vendors adhered to this commitment, responding swiftly to complaints. However, this is no longer the case in the second year of the project.

Since the inception of this pilot project, e-scooters have been cluttering sidewalks, often parked in ways that block the path, forcing wheelchair and mobility scooter users onto city streets to navigate around them. After reporting seven different e-scooters, only to find a new one blocking the same portion of the sidewalk on the same street, it became evident that vendors are no longer adhering to their commitment to respond within 15 minutes to an hour. Now, responses to complaints can take anywhere from 24 hours to 3 days. One e-scooter remained blocking the sidewalk for over 24 hours. It's infuriating to think about how many people with disabilities had to deal with these obstructions during that time.

As a mobility scooter user, being forced onto the street due to an issue that neither the vendor nor the city seems to take seriously puts me and others with disabilities at risk. We already contend with inconsiderate individuals parking vehicles in driveways that block the sidewalk, and now we must deal with e-scooter users doing the same. In other cities, if a user parks an e-scooter in a way that blocks city sidewalks, the vendor imposes an extra charge to deter such behavior. This does not seem to be the case in my city.

It appears that both the city and the vendors are content to ignore this issue and do nothing to correct the behavior of people parking e-scooters inconsiderately. While designated spaces for parking e-scooters make sense, this would require the city to add cement pads adjacent to the sidewalk or possibly enlarge current bus stop waiting areas so that e-scooters can be parked without hindering anyone's ability to safely exit and enter the bus.

I am left wondering what, if anything, the city or vendors have learned in the second year of this five-year pilot project. Hopefully, they are exploring ways to prevent e-scooters from blocking city sidewalks.