Arlington officials address scooter concerns

ARLINGTON, Va. (FOX 5 DC) -- Whether you're in D.C., Maryland, or Virginia -- it's tough to go anywhere these days without passing a scooter, but with prevalence comes problems. Now, Arlington trying to avoid those well-documented scooter struggles.

There's no shortage of scooters in the DMV. While some riders like what they've seen, others do not, so Arlington is trying to sort things out.

As part of the effort, they just extended a pilot project that's been running for about the last eight months. For instance, between October 2018 and April 2019, more than 313,000 people went for a ride in Arlington, totaling about 307,000 miles.

The county's received hundreds of emails, with the most common complaints falling into four categories -- people riding on the sidewalks, improper parking, unsafe behavior and people who appear to be too young to ride.

Here's one of the big takeaways so far: while riders aren't perfect, the county thinks some of these issues could be avoided with more help from the scooter operators themselves.

"If you think about it, this is a new industry for them. They created it, they came, we didn't ask for it, it's evolving. We don't have the answers and I'm convinced they don't have all the answers either," said Jim Larsen, the Arlington County Commuter Services Bureau Chief.

So for instance, Larsen would like to see the scooter companies incentivize proper parking, although he admits, the process is still a work in progress.

To be clear, this isn't just an Arlington issue. Places like Montgomery County, for instance, currently have their own pilot programs too.