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The Vancouver park board plans to tweak its bylaws to permit e-bikes and electrical kick scooters on designated biking paths in park-controlled areas of town.
The proposed modifications come as Vancouver is ready to launch an e-scooter ride-share program and as the usage of micromobility units continues to extend.
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As a part of the plan, metropolis council not too long ago permitted site visitors bylaw modifications making scooters authorized on streets with pace limits of fifty km/h or much less and on the Stanley Park seawall. The most recent bylaw change would prolong entry to park pathways and the part of the seawall beneath park board management.
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For security, town engineering division is being requested to arrange geo-fencing on shared scooters to digitally management their pace, particularly in high-traffic areas such because the seawall.
The operator chosen to run the shared scooter program would additionally work with employees to limit scooters from areas the place e-bikes are already not allowed, comparable to alongside busy pedestrian paths. E-scooter speeds would in any other case be restricted to speeds of 25 km/h or much less beneath provincial guidelines.
“Counts from 2023 alongside a choice of bike routes in Vancouver recommend a 25 per cent year-over-year enhance within the variety of e-scooters.”
Scooters now vary between three and 11 per cent of energetic transportation journeys within the metropolis, with the very best volumes close to town centre, in accordance with a report being introduced to the Vancouver park board on Monday.
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The report notes latest UBC surveys discovered “folks utilizing bicycles, pedal-assisted e-bikes and e-scooters are typically snug sharing a path.”
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Employees are additionally wanting into the price of putting in and sustaining charging stations in metropolis parks to make e-scooters extra handy.
Increasing e-bike and scooter entry and availability is a part of a 30-year grasp plan to enhance transit and energetic transportation connectivity and enhance entry to parks and different facilities in Vancouver.
Personal leases are already allowed and a number of other corporations have launched lately. The park board plan to run its personal program aimed to make scooter entry extra equitable and inexpensive.
“The town has been actively selling sustainability and reductions in carbon emissions by daring targets, together with having two-thirds of journeys in Vancouver made by energetic transportation and transit by 2030,” the report mentioned.
The bylaw change aligns with a provincial pilot, not too long ago prolonged by 2028, that enables e-scooters on protected bike lanes and minor streets. “For the reason that begin of the provincial pilot in 2021, the usage of e-scooters continues to extend,” famous the report.
Vancouver has 330 linear kilometres in its biking community, together with 103 km of bodily protected lanes and paths. About 38 km of these biking paths are in parks, together with almost half of town’s seaside greenway from Spanish Banks Park by False Creek and round Stanley Park to Coal Harbour.
jruttle@postmedia.com
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