Santa Monica City Council Extends Shared Mobility Pilot Program

SANTA MONICA, CA — The Santa Monica City Council decided to extend the city's Shared Mobility Pilot Program through May 2020. The council voted on the extension at a Tuesday night meeting, which will pave the way for a second pilot program with "intensified regulations that facilitates greater customer reliability and affordability, and more effectively achieves safety and public outcomes," the City of Santa Monica said.

The city's initial pilot program has led to more than 2.6 million trips on e-scooters and e-bikes over the last year, half of which replaced car trips. The City Council directed staff to come back in early 2020 with a second pilot that advances the following goals:

• Improve safe riding with a focus on sidewalk safety and develop systems that manage user behavior when operating and parking devices.
• Offer and increase utilization of income-qualified reduced rate programs to ensure that shared mobility remains an accessible transportation option for all community members.
• Increase efforts to incentivize the use of designated parking zones and penalize users who park devices illegally.
• Ensures fees generated continue to support infrastructure projects that improve bike and scooter safety.

"Scooters and e-bikes are undoubtedly popular and user data tells us people are riding them instead of hopping in a car," Mayor Gleam Davis said. "These shared micro mobility devices have aided in advancing our mobility, sustainability, and well-being goals, but there’s still work to refine regulations, improve safe use, and incentivize equitable access for people of all incomes. Working with micro mobility companies in a cooperative manner will allow us to make further progress as the technology and the industry evolves."

City Council is open to reducing the number of operators in the second pilot, as well as improving the way the public can report issues to scooter companies, focusing parking drop zones in the street and exploring viability of a re-envisioned Breeze Bike Share Program, the City said.

Council will vote on the second pilot in early 2020, and will implement it in the spring.

For more information on how e-bikes and scooters were used over the last year, read the summary report. For pilot program details, visit smgov.net/sharedmobility.