Streets Alive Yarra offers the following feedback regarding some of the items on the agenda for the 17 December 2024 Council Meeting.
7.1 Waste Charge and Waste Service
Streets Alive Yarra supports the Officer Recommendation, i.e. to take the time to develop a Waste and Recycling Service Strategy within the new Council Plan, because this issue impacts over twenty million dollars of annual expenditure, Council’s financial sustainability, and the ability of Council to fund other initiatives, such as investments in infrastructure for active transport.
7.2 E-scooter update
Streets Alive Yarra supports Option 4, i.e. cease the shared e-scooters scheme in Yarra until permanent contracts are approved, because:
- It will actually address the problem of e-scooters blocking footpaths
- It incentivises both Council and the Operators to determine whether there is a financially and spatially viable solution for e-scooter parking in Yarra, and thus a viable business model for shared e-scooters at all
Throughout the trial, Streets Alive Yarra has consistently advocated for dedicated on-street e-scooter parking bays, to prevent footpaths from being obstructed.
Council has now, for the first time, published maps showing just how many of Yarra’s footpaths are unsuitably narrow to support e-scooter parking (even better would be to publish a downloadable dataset in accordance with the Open Data Policy). Yarra’s Transport Strategy targets an unobstructed footpath width of 2.0 metres, which means 50% of footpaths are unsuitable.
If these footpaths are geofenced to prevent e-scooter parking, then shared scooters will no longer be viable as a service, unless there is a widespread rollout of dedicated on-street e-scooter parking bays. We estimate that 1,000 bays are required, to provide a parking bay within 150 metres of each property in Yarra.
The next step should be for Council and the Operators to determine whether there is a viable business model for shared e-scooters in Yarra, by considering:
- How many on-street e-scooter parking bays are required, e.g. 1,000 across the municipality
- The up-front cost required to mark or sign each bay, e.g. $1,000 per bay
- The annual cost to rent each bay, e.g. equivalent to the charge for a car-share bay, e.g. $500 per bay per year
- The cost to place e-scooters in Yarra, to reflect the costs borne by Council, e.g. in tracking and reporting complaints from residents, e.g. $3 per day, which is triple the existing fee
- Whether the operators are willing to pay the charges:
- an up-front charge of $1,000,000 (1,000 bays x $1,000 per bay)
- an annual fee of $500,000 to rent the bays (1,000 bays x $500 per year)
- an annual fee of $500,000 to place scooters in Yarra (500 e-scooters x 365 days x $3 per day)
Alternatively, if Yarra wished to subsidise the provision of shared e-scooters, then Council should consider accelerating their reform of how on-street car parking is priced, i.e. to charge commuters $10 per day to park in Yarra. Such a reform would raise tens of millions of dollars per year, more than enough to provide dedicated on-street parking bays for shared e-scooters.
Published 15 December 2024