Colorado Springs scooter program dealing with parking complaints
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO)-- It's hard to miss the neon lights of the Lime electric scooters in downtown Colorado Springs. For some, it's also unfortunately hard to miss them on sidewalks or parked in places they shouldn't be.
Colorado Springs is currently participating in a one-year trial with electric scooter operators Lime and Veo. The program launched at the beginning of October.
City traffic engineer Todd Frisbie thinks it's been generally successful. However, Frisbie said the city gets between five and ten complaints per day, almost exclusively, related to parking.
"People are sending in pictures of scooters parked to the side, you know blocking a sidewalk or a curb ramp, or tossed to the side of the street," Frisbie said.
While there are plenty of complaints from neighbors in areas surrounding downtown, riders seem pleased with the program.
"They’re awesome," rider Brad Castle said as he boarded his scooter Monday night. "They’re fun, they’re easy, you can ride around downtown, and you don’t have to take an uber and stuff. It’s amazing."
KRDO spoke with a resident in the Pleasant Valley neighborhood who said she's had five or six parked on the dirt outside of her home. It's technically not private property, but she is responsible for maintaining the area.
Just a few blocks away, annoyed neighbors say a scooter has been parked on the grass outside the Pleasant Valley Townhomes for quite a few days.
There are designated mass-parking zones downtown where riders must park their scooters. If you're inside the blue perimeter, you can't stop the ride without parking at one of the spaces. But outside of the area is more of a free-for-all.
Riders need to upload a picture of where they parked their scooter through a smartphone app. Riders can be reprimanded for parking in the wrong areas.
Still, some riders actually think the parking is already too restrictive.
"You have to find a place to park it and in Denver, you can just ditch where ever," rider Kimberly Custer said.
While the current scooter program gets a passing grade from Custer, she said she wants more places to park.
"We had to ride around a couple of blocks to find a spot," she said.
Frisbie says that at the six-month mark, the city will meet with the scooter companies again to reassess things that can be fixed.
