After nearly 1M scooter trips, Salt Lake City is changing where riders can park downtown

SALT LAKE CITY — Riders hopping off a rental e-scooter in parts of downtown Salt Lake City may discover their trip isn't quite over when they think it is.

The city has launched a pilot program requiring riders to leave rental scooters in designated parking zones in a portion of downtown. The zones are geofenced, meaning a rider's app won't allow them to end a trip unless the scooter is parked in one of the approved areas.

"If they aren't in one of those zones, they'll get a notification to move into one," said Ruedigar Matthes, policy manager in Salt Lake City's Department of Community and Neighborhoods. "They just can't end their trip without it."

The mandatory parking zones quietly went live in August and currently cover the eastern portion of downtown, from east of West Temple to 200 East. Mandatory parking areas have also been established around The Gateway.

And they're aimed at a transportation option that's getting plenty of use.

Matthes said riders took nearly 1 million scooter trips in Salt Lake City last year, and the city is on pace to surpass that number this year.

For now, many of the designated parking areas are relatively simple: painted boxes on the sidewalk near the curb telling riders where to leave their scooters. But the city sees those markings as an early step toward a more permanent system.

"This first phase, we put paint on sidewalks, and then we put a geofence around certain areas and turn it on," Matthes said.

Getting scooters out of the way

The immediate goal is to bring some order to a transportation option that, by its dockless nature, can end up scattered across sidewalks and other public spaces.

"It's to help kind of declutter downtown in some ways, and then also to just help ensure that scooters aren't blocking sidewalks and places that they're not supposed to be," Matthes said.

That includes keeping pathways clear for people using wheelchairs, walkers and other mobility devices.

Matthes said the city deliberately placed the parking zones close to curbs or in roadways to keep the main portion of sidewalks, building entrances and other access points open.

"We definitely want to make sure our downtown and all of our city is accessible to everyone, regardless of how you move through the city," he said.

Salt Lake City has received complaints over the years about where scooters are left, Matthes said, although he said those complaints were not the primary reason for the new system.

The city has also heard complaints about people riding scooters on sidewalks.

Rather than responding to one specific surge in complaints, Matthes said officials looked at how other cities manage shared scooters and adopted practices they believed could work in Salt Lake City.

Some cities have stricter systems that require riders to physically lock a scooter to something before ending a trip. Other cities continue to allow scooters to be left more freely.

Salt Lake City is trying to find a balance between the two.

"It really was trying to just look at best practices and implement," Matthes said. "The hope is that by implementing best practices, you do address kind of the complaints that people have, whether we're hearing those complaints or not."

Eventually moving scooter parking into the street

The painted sidewalk parking zones riders see today aren't necessarily what the system will look like in the future. Over the next year, the city hopes to move more of the scooter parking areas into permanent locations in the roadway, with additional infrastructure around them.

The idea isn't only to change where riders leave scooters. It's also intended to reinforce where the city wants people riding them.

"People will start their trip in the road, and they'll end their trip in the road," Matthes said. "Hopefully they'll just do their whole trip in the road rather than using sidewalks for getting around."

Each of the city's current painted scooter parking areas includes the message, "Ride in the road."

Matthes said there are circumstances where riders currently have to use a sidewalk, but the city wants to reduce sidewalk riding wherever possible.

More mandatory parking is coming

The current downtown pilot isn't expected to be the end of the program.

Matthes said Salt Lake City plans to continue expanding mandatory parking throughout the rest of downtown. Officials will then examine usage data to determine where similar zones may make sense next.

The city's shared-mobility options have also expanded to include seated scooters, another option Matthes said is seeing use as Salt Lake City's overall scooter ridership continues to grow.

For riders, Matthes said the message is fairly simple: Pay attention to where a scooter is left, keep pathways open, and be courteous to others using the street or sidewalk.

"Make sure you're parking in the right way and just ride safe and have a great time," he said. "They are a great way to get around the city."

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