E-scooters lined up in Melbourne in December.Credit:Simon Schluter
It recommends reducing road speed limits to 30km/h in city centres and high streets around childcare centres,playgrounds and healthcare centres,and to 40km/h in all other areas.
Lowering speed limits on roads where cyclists are present – already a common practice across the state – significantly reduces the risk of injury or death in collisions,the report’s authors said.
They also recommended electric scooters,which have surged in popularity but remain illegal,be legalised and their users – along with e-bike and regular bicycle riders – be allowed to ride on the pavements,provided they do not go more than 15km/h and always give way to pedestrians.
As cities around the world have grappled with how to deal with the convenient but occasionally dangerous devices,the NSW government will now consider whether to agree to the recommendations or follow the likes ofMelbourne and Paris and maintain a ban on them.
The report’s findings:
- The proliferation of fat bikes is raising serious safety concerns for pedestrians,and ambiguity about rules and definitions hinders effective regulation.
- Implementing a “bureaucratic” registration process for bike riders would limit accessibility of e-bikes and e-scooters,particularly for low income earners.
- There is a “disconnect” between the claims of share bike operators relating to parking and management of their bikes and the reality on the ground.
“The issues we are seeing with e-mobility devices are not so much about the devices themselves – they are signs that the rules and the way we enforce them are outdated or ineffective,” Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann,the inquiry chair,wrote in the report.
The committee,made up of members from across the political spectrum,were unanimous in supporting the expansion of shared and private electric transport devices – but singled outfat bikes as causing serious safety concerns.