Knoxville officials will host a public meeting on proposed changes to the city’s shared dockless scooter ordinance at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 17, at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay St.
City officials want to hear people’s opinions on the scooter pilot program and proposed changes, and the meeting will include a Q&A session.
Proposed changes to the ordinance regulating shared dockless scooters will be presented to city council for its review later this year. Currently, the city is operating under a temporary pilot program with two electric scooter share programs.
Once the pilot program ends and the ordinance is updated, additional vendors may be allowed to offer services, and the range of potential services could be expanded. For example, one change being proposed is to allow vendors to offer both ride share scooters and ride share bicycles.
Another proposed change would convert a small number of downtown on-street parking spaces into corrals for electric scooters. This would further encourage scooter passengers to only ride on the streets, not sidewalks – scooter riding is and will continue to be prohibited on sidewalks.
The corrals for parked scooters also would address complaints that riders sometimes leave their scooters in the wrong places and clutter sidewalks or block access to curb cuts. Info here.
On hand to hear public comments and answer questions will be:
- Carter Hall, policy and business innovation lead, city of Knoxville
- John Coward, Knoxville Police Department
- Micromobility expert Chris Cherry, associate professor, UT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Cheyanne Woodward, Government Partnerships East, superpedestrian
- Joey Nagey, Veo operations manager
Eric Vreeland is deputy director of communications for the city of Knoxville.