Friday, March 13
By 2035, the Senate has decided, e-scooters will no longer litter Berlin’s sidewalks. Instead, their collection and return will be limited to fixed parking spots or so-called mobility stations. This decision was made in alignment with the Allgemeine Blinden- und Sehbehindertenverein Berlin (ABSV), the General Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
Designating e-scooters particular parking areas has been implemented in some areas of the city already but parking them on footpaths is still partly allowed. According to the ABSV, this creates a great risk of accidents for blind and visually impaired people.
The changeover will take place area by area, and as soon as a designated parking place for e-scooters is established, a no-parking zone will be set up in the rest of the area. Complete conversion of this process is expected by 2035.
This will mean setting up almost 3,000 parking spaces, a spokesman for the Senate Traffic Administration announced, a big jump from the 500 currently in the city. “The target year 2035 results if we assume an average annual addition of 200-300 locations,” the spokesman said. Planning and approval processes will create a barrier; however, they claimed that efforts are being made to “lift acceleration potentials and try to realise the construction faster”.
According to Thomas Krämer, the managing director of the ABSV, however, this timing is “unacceptable” and due to the daily dangers to blind people, the sidewalk parking of e-scooters “must be prevented as quickly as possible”.
The providers of rental e-scooters argue that their business model is threatened with fixed parking zones because it makes their less attractive to customers. They have already seen restrictions with a maximum limit of 19,000 loan e-scooters in the city centre and 24,000 in the rest of Berlin. However, it does look like, eventually, we won’t be tripping over e-scooters while walking down the street, so that’s something.
