E-scooter riders—like those found on Bird and Lime scooters across the city—will soon be able to use the beach path for their transportation needs.
When will e-scooters be permitted on the beach path and what will that look like?
Prohibited for years, new e-scooter riders looking to cruise the path will find themselves having to walk their scooters back to designated areas where they are permitted. This is achieved via geo-fencing, where the device’s GPS knows where the user is.
Set to present a formal ordinance to Council in the coming weeks, the new permission will set e-scooters at 15MPH across all areas of the path except where there are heavy pedestrian crossings. Those areas, like Junipero Beach and the Belmont Pier, will require e-scooters to ride at no more than 5MPH. As in many areas, such as Downtown’s transit mall, leaving one’s scooter on the path will be prohibited and the device will direct the rider to park their scooter at a designated parking spot.
Should the ordinance be approved in a timely fashion, the earliest we can expect to see e-scooters on the bike path will be May 22.
The importance of expanding e-scooter (and alternative transportation) accessibility
“I was just speaking to two Wilson students and they both work in Downtown,” said Councilmember Cindy Allen of District 2. “This will give them the safer option to take the path directly to their work at The Pike, which is just awesome. This represents real opportunity for our residents to move around in our city in a safe way.”
This is one of the most concrete, easiest ways to justify opening the beach path. Avoiding dangerous arterials like Ocean, multiple users who use other means—Allen noted that she has had residents told her they “use Uber to get around” after they’ve parked their car for fear of losing their spot—can now have a cheaper, safer option.
Just how many people are using those e-scooters? Samantha Martinez, a representative from e-scooter company Lime, shared that in Long Beach alone, 150,000 riders have taken 1.7M trips since their launch in Long Beach. That is solely Lime; this excludes brands like Bird and now-defunct brands like Razr, which was one of the first to launch in Long Beach in 2018.
“We are fully support of this item,” said Kylie Feldman, a representative with e-scooter company Bird. “It’s really encouraging to see a city embrace the idea that transportation, whether commuting or fun, can also be a vessel to explore Long Beach’s beauty.”
It’s a horrible idea. The bike path is already very crowded. E-scooters and E-bikes are a nuisance on the bike path.
It’s progress and you definitely have the option not to take the bike path.
People ride scooters down the middle of 1st St in Belmont Shore going the wrong way and not even pausing at intersections but we’re supposed to think they’ll slow down to 5 mph at certain points on the beach bike path? People drop scooters in the middle of sidewalks all over the city but we’re supposed to believe they’ll park them in designated areas at the beach?