Photo: Wayne Moore
E-scooters have already been used in downtown Kelowna.
It wasn’t long before electric scooter rentals became widely available.
It was announced that Lime has received approval to provide the service in town as the ink is barely dry due to legal changes making e-scooters legal on street in Kelowna.
Lime, the global leader in shared electric vehicles, plans to drop 500 electric scooters in Kelowna tonight.
It was just hours earlier when the city council passed changes to its traffic rules that allowed people to use e-scooters wherever bicycles are allowed. To date, e-scooters have only been allowed on urban land such as the railroad, the waterfront and in the city park.
While e-scooters are now legal on bike paths and shared paths, they are not allowed on sidewalks.
“We are deeply grateful to the city of Kelowna for the opportunity to serve its residents and visitors, and we are very excited to develop a collaborative e-scooter program that is tailored to the needs of this beautiful city,” said Jen Freiman, GM by Lime Canada
“We look forward to helping the community by providing safe and sustainable transportation for people to enjoy a truly beautiful corner of British Columbia. Lime congratulates the City of Kelowna on its leadership among British Columbia cities by being the first to offer new 21st century car-free mobility options to meet its lofty transit and sustainability goals. “
Lime has also partnered with Tourism Kelowna to ensure drivers have access to helmets. Anyone can get a free Lime helmet at the Visitor Information Center on Queensway.
According to Lime, the focus will be on driver safety, helping local businesses and sustainability. It will also run an education and training program for drivers.
Local operators are tasked with avoiding clutter on the sidewalk and solving problems that arise.
“The original area in which Lime wants to operate was selected on the basis of detailed research into where joint e-scooters and e-bikes could have the greatest positive impact on tourism and sustainability, in addition to safety aspects such as bike path locations,” said a press release .
“Lime will continue to evaluate data and work with the city to improve and hopefully expand its activities during the pilot program.”
In order to use the Lime service, users must first download the company app.
