Many Ohio cities — including Dayton, Kettering and Columbus — and communities across the country have taken action in recent years to regulate what Oakwood calls “dockless electric scooters and bicycles.”
Kettering’s moratorium was approved in February.
A “public nuisance” is how Oakwood labels the devices, which City Councilman Rob Stephens said are frequently “abandoned by users wherever they happen to stop — in streets, doorways and other public places.”
The vehicles are “available to be rented on demand from unstaffed locations, have arrived in many cities suddenly and unexpectedly, and have since proliferated rapidly,” Stephens said, noting they are “largely unregulated.”
The action taken against the devices Monday night by the city is necessary because the Ohio General Assembly has not taken steps to regulate them and “no state regulation has been forthcoming,” according to the legislation.
Oakwood defines the vehicles as “any wheeled device, other than an automobile or motorcycle, that is powered by a motor; is accessed via an on-demand portal, whether a smartphone application, membership card, or similar method; is operated by a private entity that owns, manages, and maintains devices for shared use by members of the public; and is available to members of the public in unstaffed, self-service locations,” according to the legislation.
The Oakwood ordinance includes:
•No person shall park, leave standing, leave lying, abandon, or otherwise place them in a public right-of-way or on public property.
•No person shall operate them in a public right-of-way or on public property.
•No person shall provide or offer them for use anywhere.
The vehicles pose “serious safety concerns” to both larger vehicle traffic and pedestrians and violators will be charged with a misdemeanor, Oakwood records show.
Kettering’s moratorium was approved after similar public safety concerns, officials have said.
In 2018, Columbus banned electronic scooters from its sidewalks. Dayton city commissioners last year imposed new rules on the vehicles and the companies that rent them out.
Late last year in California, the Beverly Hills City Council expanded its prohibition of certain shared mobility devices - including electric scooters - through January 2021.
In February, Arlington County Virginia set limits on where e-scooters and e-bikes could operate.
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