City Council Okays E-Scooters for 2020

By a unanimous vote on December 14th, the Alexandria City Council approved Phase II of its electronic scooters pilot program through the end of 2020.  The City joins neighboring jurisdictions with Scooter Programs including Arlington, Washington, DC, Fairfax County and Falls Church City.

The City is adding an Ad Hoc Scooter Task Force to provide guidance to City Council. The Task Force will have thirteen members, to be appointed by the City Manager, representing a diversity of interests related to shared mobility including representatives from the City Council, business, citizens at-large, the disability and aging communities and transportation expert/advocate.

Other key changes include:

  • Safety: the maximum speed for devices within the City is 15 mph and limits riding scooters on sidewalks

  • Fees: increases permit fees to $10,000 and per device fee of $75

  • Parking: requires operators to stage in scooter corrals, install more parking corrals, develop a streamlined reporting process and add “No-park” zone(s)

  • Age requirements: the minimum age to ride an electric scooter is 14 years old, unless the user is accompanied by someone 18 years or older with a driver’s license

  • Scooter distribution: requires 15% of each operator’s fleet be deployed west of Quaker Lane and east of I395, another 10% of vehicles deployed west of I-395, and 5% deployed in Arlandria that can be adjusted by the City

  • Environmental sustainability: the operators shall be required to provide information about charging vehicles and frequency, origin of device manufacturing, and disposal/recycling methods for devices and associated parts.


The Phase II pilot period will provide the City an opportunity to further research and compile data and answers to many questions that arose during the first pilot.

Neoniche Strategies