As Parisians rebound from their brief romance with e-scooters—now banned— Torontonians with disabilities are urging the City to properly enforce its own ban on what they call a “silent menace.”

At the end of August, 2023, five years after it became one of the first cities in Europe to embrace shared e-scooters, Paris held a referendum that ended the scooter service—and heralded a new dawn for biking, writes Cities Today.

At the peak of their use, some 15,000 shared e-scooters were “roaming” the streets, much to the escalating displeasure of those who objected to “poor parking, user behaviour, and concerns over safety.”

Efforts to discipline e-scooter use through strict regulation had failed, so Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo put the matter to referendum last April, asking residents to give either a thumbs up, or a thumbs down, on the future of the e-scooter.

Among those who bothered to vote (only 7.5%), the nays won, hands down, at 90%.

Bad scooter ridership was not the only factor behind the ban.

While safety fears were cited, it was more the perception of danger that influenced the vote, Natalia Ciciarello, the city’s shared mobility manager, told Cities Today. “Statistically, there were not many accidents because of these e-scooters, but we had a lot of people say to the city that there was a feeling of insecurity around how they were being used, and this was quite important,” she said.

Health was another issue. “Cities need to promote active mobility, and if you can do the same trip on a regular bike, why should you promote and give so much space for a shared e-scooter?”

And indeed, with e-scooters banned, biking is booming. “It’s really incredible,” Ciciarello said.

That boom is being supported by some serious euros and bike-friendly infrastructure.

Committed to a vision of Paris as a city of pedestrians and cyclists, not cars, Hidalgo is overseeing a €250-million (C$368-million) investment to make the entire city bikeable by 2026.

In addition to expanding its already extensive network of more than 1,000 kilometres of bike paths, the French capital is also working on parking for bikes. There are plans to create more than 70,000 new parking stands, with 40,000 near rail stations. Another 50,000 are expected to be built by the private sector.

In jurisdictions where e-scooters are still legal, a recent United States survey suggests that users—whether they rent or own—need to get more closely acquainted with the laws governing their ride. Conducted by ERideHero last December, the survey of 1,000 e-scooter users found that only 24.5% were “very familiar” with local laws. Nearly half (47.4%) “admitted to occasional non-compliance with laws,” primarily due to lack of knowledge (37%), convenience and need for haste (25%), and the sense that a law was “unnecessary or overly restrictive (18%).

Toronto residents could attest to a similar disinclination for riders to learn or obey the scooter laws on the books. Were scooter riders in the city to apprise themselves of such laws, they would discover that, as in Paris, their ride is banned.

As it stands, far too many either don’t know about the ban, or ignore it, an insouciance that is making the lives of people with disabilities downright frightening.

“Because they are a silent menace, someone like me who is blind can’t tell if they are coming up in front of me or behind me,” said lawyer David Lepofsky, who spoke at recent public forum on scooters hosted by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, reports Toronto City News.

Often left lying on the sidewalk, scooters are a tripping hazard, and an “accessibility hazard” for people in wheelchairs, Lepofsky added.

Disability and seniors advocates are urging the city to maintain and enforce the current ban. The public forum “comes ahead of a city staff report on micro-mobility set to be delivered to the Infrastructure and Environment committee next month,” City News writes.