Commentary by Samuel Strait – April 20, 2023 Looks like it is "pick on the City Council" today as I spent an hour or so looking for those modern benefits to public transportation at a cost, EV Scooters for hire. Oh and "green" too. In any event, the search was fruitless and maybe for the best. I don't suppose many who remember the City's Council authorizing an Electric Scooter rental company to come to town last summer. The plan was to allow a couple dozen of the friendly little critters to operate from "no fixed location"within the City's limits. A great benefit to tourists who want to cruise the "boulevards" of our charming "destination" resort to be. It was ushered in with great promise, likely an additional benefit and nod to becoming "green" and fighting "Climate Change", whatever that is on any given day. We are all wondering what happened? Maybe the word has leaked, that the little "beasties" are neither "green", nor friendly. Seems they don't play well on the streets, and are a bane to bicyclists, pedestrians, and the handicapped. In 2017 they were all the rage in many European and US cities, Paris among them. At least until the other shoe dropped. Looks like the Mayor of Paris intends to ban all rental E scooters by the end of the summer 2023. Other cities, while maintaining the ability to rent the menaces, have instituted stringent regulations when riding. Unfortunately most are regularly ignored by riders. Back to Paris where deaths from E scooters rose to sixty in 2022, including one sixty year old woman killed while walking her dog on the sidewalk. Riding the little monsters was to be restricted to bike lanes, yet many riders are less discriminating and regularly fly down crowded pedestrian sidewalks at top speed causing those not terribly agile to flee to the streets. Riders in the bike lanes have quite often become a nuisance to bike riders, the differences in speed being the most common problem. Bike riders detest being "ridden" down in their safe spaces. Then there is also the unfortunate E scooter rider whose steed runs out of juice, in the middle of the street, in front of businesses or in intersections. Most people would assume that these unfortunates would at least find a safe place to leave their inoperative beasty, but no, where ever they end up they are abandoned, even if it is in the middle of the street or intersection. Bravo to this generation of rental E scooter riders. Many cities that have allowed the proliferation of E scooters are beginning to regret the open arms welcome they were given just six years ago. Problems began almost immediately, and regulation was quick to follow. Lower speeds allowed. Restricted to bike lanes only, and some even required "helmets" my goodness. Nothing seemed to work and Paris' 15,000 rental scooters will be a thing of the past, at least by the end of summer 2023. Wondering where Crescent City's EV scooters are?