Road safety has emerged as a significant theme at this year’s conference of B.C. municipalities, with at least five resolutions related to the subject of scooters
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A new issue has recently rolled to the forefront when New Westminster Mayor Patrick Johnstone talks to voters in his city: scooters.
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“I’m not exaggerating at all when I say when I go to have a meeting in a senior’s centre in New Westminster and talk to seniors about their No. 1 issue, it’s not affordable housing right now, it’s not crime on the streets. It is fear of scooters on sidewalks,” Johnstone said Tuesday. “It is a real, novel threat.”
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New West is introducing a resolution about scooters for consideration at this week’s Union of B.C. Municipalities, the annual local government conference. If approved by a majority of the delegates present, the resolution will call on the provincial government to establish provincewide regulations for kick scooters.
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Road safety has emerged as a significant theme at this year’s convention, with at least five resolutions related to the subject.
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The B.C. government has had ample time to figure out how to regulate electric scooters, Johnstone said at a news conference Tuesday at the UBCM convention. The province initially launched a pilot project in 2021 testing electric scooters in certain B.C. communities, and launched a new four-year pilot project in 2024.
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“We should have some consistent regulations by now. These technologies have been around for long enough, and the province needs to move quicker to get to a set of proper regulations,” Johnstone said. “I don’t know why it takes seven years to figure out changes to road regulations.”
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Currently, the rules around electric scooters differ from one municipality to another, Johnstone said, which doesn’t work in a province with more than 160 municipalities.
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“Even the police are unclear what to enforce and where to enforce it,” Johnstone said.
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City of Langley Mayor Nathan Pachal said scooters and other electric-powered “e-mobility devices” are an issue in big cities and small towns alike. Pachal said he has heard from the officer in charge of the local RCMP detachment that “the top issue they talk about when they meet with the Lower Mainland district is e-mobility devices.”
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B.C. Children’s Hospital recorded 81 e-scooter-related emergency room visits in 2025-26, more than double the number the year before. Most incidents involved children ages 13 to 15, below B.C.’s legal riding age of 16.
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In July, the Vancouver police issued a public safety warning about helmets and e-scooters, after one woman died and another was taken to hospital with serious injuries after separate scooter accidents within days of each other.
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The City of Vancouver entered into an agreement in 2024 with Lime to operate a shared e-scooter system. The system has been popular with riders, but also generated some public backlash.
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Vancouver Coun. Lucy Maloney said she has heard from several residents complaining about the noise at the scooter docking stations, both from the sound of parking the vehicles and from loud groups of scooter-riders, especially at night.
