The Santa Cruz City Council is working to achieve a rational use of electric scooters in the city, and reduce the incidents that these personal mobility vehicles (PMVs) are causing. Thus, as confirmed by the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, to DIARIO DE AVISOS, in addition to the fact that users will continue to pay for the use of the scooter until they leave it properly parked, work is also being done so that they disconnect when they enter the areas of the city where they are not allowed, that is, in pedestrian areas. “We are in conversation with the main company that operates in the city (Link) to launch specific parking lots for scooters and that, if users do not leave them correctly parked in these parking lots, the rent will continue to be charged.” “With the same software -he continued- what is proposed is that in certain areas of the city, where they are not allowed, the scooter is automatically disconnected, preventing its use in them”. These zones would be the pedestrian ones.
“Each scooter is geolocated and that would allow the disconnection to be applied. It is a technology that the company already has, and that it would be willing to use to regularize the presence of skateboards on the street. The cost for the City Council is zero”, affirmed the mayor.
As Bermúdez advanced, in the near future he will meet with the person in charge of the aforementioned company for Europe, who will travel to Santa Cruz to meet with the mayor.
The proposal of the Consistory is the creation of about 50 places for these electric scooters for rent, which will be distributed in ten points located in the center of the capital.
accidents
The emergence of electric scooters in the capital is causing serious inconvenience for people with mobility problems, the main affected by the abandonment of these vehicles in pedestrian areas. This same week, We Want to Move, a group that defends the rights of people with disabilities, denounced that a blind person had suffered an accident when he tripped over one of these vehicles that had been abandoned in the middle of a sidewalk. An incident that, unfortunately, is not the first.
The City Council continues with the removal of scooters when they are badly parked, raising the relevant sanction proposals. However, these vehicles, at the moment, are being withdrawn from the municipal deposit without paying any fee, since, according to the Department of Security and Mobility, no type of payment can be requested from them as these VMPs are not included in the ordinance fiscal. Work is already underway for its modification, according to the mayor of Mobility, Evelyn Alonso. At the moment there are four companies that operate in Santa Cruz and that have a thousand scooters scattered around the city.
