Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced Thursday that she is banning the nighttime use of rented electric scooters and electric bikes, between the hours of 9 p.m. and 4 a.m.
LEARN MORE: E-SCOOTER DEATHS
The announcement comes days after the Atlanta metro area saw its fourth scooter related fatality. At 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Quineterry McGriff, a homeless man, ran a red light and was hit by a truck, police told Channel 2 Action News.
While McGriff’s fatality occurred in the early morning, the metro area’s three other fatalities happened after 9 p.m.
“This nighttime ban, while we continue to develop further long-term measures, will ensure the safest street conditions for scooter riders, motorists, cyclists, those in wheelchairs and pedestrians,” Bottoms said in a statement.
Bottoms said that the city’s planning department has requested that e-scooter vendors disable the devices during the hours they are banned.
The ban does not apply to privately-owned devices.
E-scooters’ popularity has rapidly grown over the past two years, as city leaders across the world struggle with how to regulate them.
“As a major city, we believe there is potential in engineering the smart integration of this popular mode of transportation,” said City Planning Commissioner Tim Keane in a statement. “The devices go a long way in providing last-mile connectivity and convenience to residents, students, businesses and visitors. But it is vital that we pause and assess how we move forward in a responsible way, with public safety always being the top priority.”
Bottoms also said that her administration is pursuing measures to create an accelerated plan for changes to city streets for safer, dedicated spaces for cyclists and scooter riders and a revised selection process that will limit the number of dockless vendors.
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