After a nearly two hour debate, the Dallas City Council passed a 6-month pilot program on Wednesday legalizing motorized rental scooters.
Under the ordinance, scooters will not be allowed to operate on city sidewalks in the Central Business District, which includes Downtown and Deep Ellum.
"The ban on sidewalks, we support that. There's a lot of obstructions on the sidewalk that we have to face,” Jeff Roberts, who leads operations for Lime Bike said.
Scooters will also be prohibited from operating on roads where the speed limit is greater than 35 mph. Lime Bike and fellow scooter-share company Bird both said they plan to bring about 500 scooters to Dallas within the next few weeks.
The Dallas City Council also passed an amendment requiring bike and scooter share companies go through a new permitting process.
Among the new requirements are that the companies pick up stray bikes within two hours Monday through Friday during business hours and within 12-hours on the weekend and after hours.
The amendment also made it illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk in the Central Business District.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
"If we see that they are not working with us, if we have made the case time and time again that they are not complying with the ordinance then we can start fining them," Jared White with the Dallas Department of Transportation said.
