ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Orange County Commissioners are debating the future of their e-scooter pilot program in the tourism corridor. E-scooters offer tourists and workers convenient ways to get around, but many business owners on International Drive say they want them banned.<\/p>\n
The county has a 10 mile per hour speed limit on e-scooters on the busy drive, but some county commissioners and business owners say they are putting pedestrians at risk too often.<\/p>\n
Deontae John takes an e-scooter every day to and from his job at the Orange County Convention Center. He rides down International Drive to save time and thinks a ban on the vehicles would hurt commuters like himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if they banned it here, I wouldn\u2019t be able to get to work on time, especially like early in the morning when the buses are not running like that,” John said.<\/p>\n
Several I-Drive business owners went before Orange County Commissioners on Tuesday, calling for a ban on e-scooters. They say too many people ride dangerously and leave them scattered on sidewalks.<\/p>\n
Maria Triscari is president & CEO of the International Drive Resort Area Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n
She says, \u201cWe\u2019re asking for them to be prohibited in the I-Drive corridor. It\u2019s a safety concern, and that\u2019s what our issue is.\u201d<\/p>\n
County commissioners are reviewing their e-scooter pilot program for International Drive as it enters its third year. They decided on Tuesday to renew contracts with Lime and Bird to continue to provide e-scooters there. County leaders are considering lowering the number of e-scooters from 300 to 200 for the next year. They also asked staff to come back in four months with more data on pedestrians, accidents, and safety.<\/p>\n
Orange County Commissioner Mike Scott, serving District 6, says he wants to see what the data shows in the coming months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve heard about the near misses where people are running into one another. What can we do to fix it, and if those measures are actually effective or if they\u2019re not,” Scott said.<\/p>\n
Bird says they have offered 100,000 trips during the pilot program, with nine reported injuries. Lilli Krauss works with Lime and says their e-scooter riders have traveled 270,000 miles on I-Drive over the last two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s replacing car trips, ride share, Uber trips, and it\u2019s an affordable option for people to get around,” Krauss said.<\/p>\n
John thinks more people will use e-scooters in the future as a more efficient form of transportation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is the future, and e-bikes also, and yes they shouldn\u2019t ban it,” John said.<\/p>\n
City leaders in Orlando, Winter Park, and Winter Garden have banned e-scooters in areas with high pedestrian traffic, and Orange County Commissioners are asking staff to look at similar options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Orange County Commissioners are debating the future of their e-scooter pilot program in the tourism…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3140,1337,115,1335,139,141,140,99,835],"class_list":["post-427205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-keith-landry","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}