Officials said Wednesday the City of Tulsa is considered a national model for electric scooter use but there are tweaks that should be made.
During a city council committee meeting, officials said scooter ordinances were in the works before a 5-year-old boy riding one was killed in a hit-and-run last week. Chief of Community Development and Policy Nick Doctor said some regulations are less than clear.
"In terms of where these can be used on sidewalks, the current language speaks to 'business districts,' but our ordinance doesn’t define those very well. So, we’ve interpreted that generally to be downtown and then other areas where speed has been restricted on the streets," Doctor said.
Besides specifying where scooter riders may use sidewalks, the city is considering a minimum age for riders, which scooter companies Bird and Lime have policies for.
"Do we set the age requirement at 16/18? So, I think that’s something we’re still wrestling with. Both scooter companies put that at 18, and so we’ve been leaning more toward that," Doctor said.
City Councilor Crista Patrick pointed out 16-year-olds can drive a car and said it doesn’t make sense someone could be in college but not legally ride an electric scooter.
City officials think they can also make enforcement easier for police by clearly tying scooters to regulations for bicycles and similar conveyances.
Doctor said the mayor’s office is trying to figure out the best way to tell people when changes are implemented.
"There are ways the scooter companies can really help as well with that. So, if you open up your Bird app, for example, in downtown, the first thing that pops up because they know that you’re in downtown is, 'Please don’t ride on the sidewalks,'" Doctor said. "And so, there are ways that they’re already helping to push some of that out for us."
