Shared e-scooters will make Ottawa’s sidewalks more dangerous

Wayne Antle, president of the Ottawa-Gatineau Chapter of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians, Ottawa Citizen, April 10, 2021
Wayne Antle, president of the Ottawa-Gatineau Chapter of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians, disagrees with Ottawa Council’s enthusiasm for e-scooters. Shared e-scooters will make Ottawa’s streets and sidewalks more dangerous. Sharing public space with these devices will lead to injuries, especially among the disabled and visually impaired. Recently, Ottawa Council passed a motion to allow and expand the use of e-scooters on our streets in the downtown and some suburbs, putting blind people, other persons with disabilities and all pedestrians at risk. Despite the very real safety concerns raised by various groups, council did not even require the e-scooter companies to implement measures to lessen the risks. Last summer, the city ran its first e-scooter pilot project in the downtown area. Of course, there were far fewer pedestrians in the city’s core because of COVID-19. Nevertheless, there were many cases of e-scooters illegally parked, blocking pedestrian traffic, and instances of e-scooter users driving along the sidewalks.