B.C. man ditches car for e-scooter. The only problem? It's illegal

With rising gas prices, Josh Doerksen wanted to ditch his SUV and start taking an e-scooter to work.

The Merritt, B.C., resident went so far as to buy one only to discover it's actually illegal to use on city streets and sidewalks.

"I've always kind of been interested in alternative and active modes of transportation and gas prices are going up … so I thought it was a good time to start electrifying my commute," Doerksen told Daybreak Kamloops host Shelley Joyce.

So, he says, he was really disappointed to discover he would not be allowed to use the scooter on his daily commute. 

Currently, e-scooters are not allowed on roadways or sidewalks in most B.C. cities. They can be used in certain parks, but the rules make them unusable for most people's commutes.

But that could be changing as some cities find a pent-up demand for alternative modes of transport.

1,500 trips per day in Kelowna pilot

In April of last year, the province launched a pilot project, giving eight B.C. cities the opportunity to pass bylaws to allow the machines. As of March 2022, Vancouver, Kelowna, Vernon, Richmond and the District and City of North Vancouver are taking part.

Doerkson wrote a letter to his city council to see if there was a possibility that Merritt could join the pilot, and city staff are currently exploring the idea.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Kelowna, the pilot project has already met with significant success.

The main highway that runs through the community is often backed up so Kelowna council started to look for options to take cars off the road.

It lobbied the provincial government to create a pilot project to allow e-scooters on the road.

"We're growing as a community," said Kelowna's transportation planning manager Mariah VanZerr.

"We know that if all of our future residents can drive as much as we do today, things like traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions are only going to continue to get worse."

Kelowna has developed the Bikeshare Micromobility Permit Program where people can rent e-scooters through service providers authorized by the city using an app on their phones to unlock and use the alternative transportation to get around the city.

The city found that in the first five months of the pilot, 225,000 trips were made or about 1,500 trips per day.

"We were able to estimate that the program replaced enough car trips to prevent 148,000 kilometres from being driven on our roadways," said VanZerr.

"It's about the same amount of driving as you would drive around the earth almost four times."

'Makes the commute ... more exciting'

Currently, Kelowna has voted to continue with the pilot project for another two years. The City of Vancouver has committed to participating until April of 2024. Merritt city council will make a decision on whether or not to join the pilot later this spring.

As for Doerksen, he's choosing to use his scooter understanding the risks and liability he is assuming.

He says his hope is that he and the other scooter riders in town will no longer have to take on that risk.

"It definitely makes the commute a little bit more exciting."

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure will be receiving annual reports from participating communities about how the pilot project is going and anticipates getting some reports as early as this summer.

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