Disability and safety advocates want to see end to e-scooter program in Brampton

By the time snow begins to fall, electric scooters rolled out months ago by Brampton residents to navigate summer in the city will be bundled up and stored away for the winter. 

These nimble, motorized two-wheel devices have been gaining popularity in big cities across the globe, and over the last five years in Ontario. The provincial government gave municipalities permission to regulate their use in 2019 as part of a five-year pilot period. 

In March, following the inaugural 2023 season for e-scooters in Brampton, City officials heralded the program as a success. 

“The Shared E-scooter Pilot Program has exceeded expectations in ridership numbers and the feedback received from the community has been positive,” a staff report declared. “Since April (2023), residents and visitors alike have embraced the convenience and eco-friendly nature of the e-scooter initiative, contributing to the program's overall success.”

Three private companies were awarded contracts to participate in the pilot and 750 e-scooters were made available across the city.

The “Scooty” platform was one and like the others allowed residents to rent e-scooters at designated transit stations and stops, community centres, libraries and parks, using a convenient app to manage transactions and navigate the system.

Former Brampton councillor Gurpreet Dhillon, right, and current Councillor Harkirat Singh, tried out the Scooty scooters three years ago when the pilot was being considered.

(Scooty/X)

With speeds that can reach 50 kilometres an hour, and the use of scooters on both sidewalks and roadways, their growing presence has introduced a sometimes chaotic element to transportation infrastructure in cities around the world.

Statistics across Canada and from around the world show that injuries from e-scooter accidents have surged as their use has spread. 

Alberta reported that 1,000 children and teens were hurt in e-scooter accidents from 2022 to August of this year. Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed e-scooter injuries in the U.S. ballooned from 8,566 in 2017 to 56,847 in 2022 (the rapid rise in their use contributed to the dramatic increase). 

But despite growing concerns in cities around the world, including in Ontario, Brampton’s elected officials decided in 2022 that the City would launch the pilot program through the provincial government’s five-year window to do so. 

Staff noted a significant number of the 200,000 rides initiated in 2023 were from transit terminals under the rental program, showing riders took advantage of scooters as an alternative to other modes of transportation to complete “their first and last mile”, addressing a significant gap in a city with limited active transportation infrastructure and congested suburban roadways.

The introduction of the program also came with a number of problems. Residents have complained about the reckless use of e-scooters on sidewalks and social media posts have described widespread issues around their use. In the spring City officials were told by staff that eleven percent of all complaints to 311 in 2023 related to litter and obstruction were due to e-scooters.

Concerns around the impacts on residents with a range of disabilities have also been voiced since the provincial government first considered the pilot period. 

While the City of Brampton’s official statement described the first year of the pilot as a success, disability advocates are renewing their efforts to curtail e-scooter use and want a seat at the table to share their views before municipalities continue their programs.

David Lepofksy is Chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance (AODA Alliance), a non-partisan advocacy organization that fights for regulations and policies that protect those living with disabilities. His organization has been critical of e-scooter pilot programs across the province and chastized the City of Brampton in 2022 for failing to consult with his organization before moving forward with the pilot program. With the five-year study phase launched by the Ontario government coming to an end next month, Lepfosky is urging the PCs to take a second look at e-scooters. 

“They are a silent menace that endangers vulnerable seniors, people with disabilities and others,” Lepofsky and the AODA Alliance wrote as part of a submission to the PC government. Public consultations on the future of e-scooters in Ontario are currently open for comment. “The Ontario cities that have allowed e-scooters have proven that all our fears about which we warned in 2019 have come true. Five years of pilot projects in Ontario have shown that we were right. No city has found a way to effectively prevent these dangers.”

The scooters can pose a dangerous tripping hazard for blind people, block paths for those travelling with wheelchairs, walkers or strollers and pose unique obstacles for others who use transportation infrastructure in a range of ways. There is also the risk of collisions when motorized scooters move at high speeds around people who may not be aware of them or are unable to move fast enough to avoid being struck. With motorized platform scooters gaining in popularity around the world, the number of collisions involving them is also rising steadily, posing a range of physical risks and financial liability. 

“Ontario already has far too many accessibility barriers in public places and has been getting less disability accessible. E-scooters would make this even worse,” the AODA Alliance brief warns.

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act 2005 establishes clear policies for locating and eliminating obstacles in public areas, including transportation. The legislation notes that municipalities must “set out measures, policies, practices, or other requirements for the identification and removal of barriers with respect to goods, services, facilities, accommodation, employment, buildings, structures, premises, or such other things as may be prescribed, and for the prevention of the erection of such barriers.”

Local bylaws are supposed to ensure that public spaces, including sidewalks and transit stations, are free from any barriers. The Act suggests that failure to comply with rules and regulations can result in a legal penalty for a municipal government.

Despite the positive spin around Brampton’s pilot, the results of its first year show the concerns of the AODA Alliance becoming a reality. Despite the requirement for e-scooters to be parked in designated areas and locked with two wheels on the ground once a ride was completed, this only occurred in 60 percent of rides, according to data from the City. Other jurisdictions have compliance rates closer to 97 percent.

This led to the testing of two new parking policies in small areas of Brampton that allowed riders to either leave these scooters in designated parking areas, or anywhere along their route as long as they were placed on the public boulevard and did not obstruct the pedestrian right of way (it is unclear how this was enforced). 

According to the latest report by Statistics Canada on the Canadian Survey on Disability, which was conducted between 2017 and 2022, eight million Canadians aged 15 and over, or 27 percent of the population, had one or more impairments that restricted their everyday activities. Since 2017, when 6.2 million individuals, or 22 percent of the population, had one or more impairments, the number of Canadians with disabilities has climbed by five percent. Both the aging population and the sharp rise in mental health-related impairments among young people and individuals in the working age range have contributed to this increase. In 2022, women had a greater percentage of disability (30 percent) than men (24 percent), continuing the trend that began in 2017.

Six out of ten people reported having difficulty entering both indoor and outdoor public venues. The research indicated that in 2022, 72 percent of persons with disabilities said that they faced one or more of 27 categories of obstacles to accessibility due to their condition at least sometimes in the last year.

Despite the increasing need for municipalities to address the needs of this growing population, Brampton’s reporting on this issue continues to ignore these voices. 

The accessibility concerns for those with disabilities were not addressed in the staff report on e-scooters submitted by Fernanda Duarte Peixoto Soares, Project Manager, Active Transportation, Integrated City Planning, to councillors earlier this year. In early 2022, when the e-scooter pilot was being considered, for reasons that remain unclear, the City’s accessibility advisory committee was not included in the process.

Toronto, by contrast, fully engaged Lepofksy and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, who were invited to the table when advocates came out in full force as a similar e-scooter pilot was floated. It was voted down unanimously in 2021 by Toronto council members, largely due to the obvious problems people with disabilities would have faced.  

Statistics Canada has shared data indicating that the most common barriers faced by people with disabilities are those related to features found in or around public spaces, such as sidewalks and entrances and exits (56 percent), followed by barriers pertaining to communication (48 percent), behaviors, misconceptions, or assumptions (37 percent), and online activities (17 percent).

The figures indicated that in addition to the accessibility obstacles already faced by those with special needs, the e-scooter plan presents additional difficulties that make moving on sidewalks difficult for them.

Operating an e-scooter also poses serious safety risks and has legal ramifications that must be recognized. According to recent reports, their use might put communities in legal hot water in addition to posing hazards to riders. As the City of Brampton evaluates the future of the e-scooter program, concerns about insurance gaps and liability, helmet noncompliance, and a rise in pedestrian accidents raise questions about risks to taxpayers who ultimately have to pay for any escalating problems and, more importantly, the safety of residents.

E-scooters are cheap alternatives to commuting, but they are also a safety risk for pedestrians and riders.

(Pexels.com)

Figures from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, assembled and analyzed by academics at the University of California, registered a 354 percent rise of e-scooter-related injuries in United States adults between 2014 and 2018 (take-up of the products increased significantly over this period). The research noted almost one third of incidents involved a head injury.

According to an article from personal injury lawyers at Dietrich Law Firm, under Ontario's no-fault system, the insurance company will not be held liable for harm that the driver does to another individual in the event of an e-scooter accident. The hefty monetary settlements in such instances must be paid entirely by the driver of the e-scooter who is at fault. The rider is responsible for covering all medical costs and property damage associated with an e-scooter collision because vehicle insurance does not cover such incidents. If the rider is not protected by the homeowner’s insurance plan, they have to pay everything from their pocket. There won't be insurance in places where scooters are prohibited that will cover both the rider and the injured party, which is even worse.

The AODA Alliance has informed the Province that the e-scooter program is not feasible unless significant preventive measures are implemented. The organization’s submission to the PC government states it supports micro-mobility initiatives, provided that the right policies and procedures are put in place.

“We have heard over and over from diverse members of the public, including from those with and without disabilities, that they strongly object to e-scooters,” the AODA Alliance said in its written statement on its website. “Past and present members of city councils have confided how they find e-scooters objectionable, as they race at them at high speeds, seem to come out of nowhere, and endanger themselves and others.”

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