Parking spaces to be reserved for e-scooters in Istanbul

ISTANBUL

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has initiated a project to provide parking spaces for e-scooters, with Kadıköy district being chosen as the pilot area.

With the project launched following the increase in complaints, a total of 52 scooter parking areas will be built in Kadıköy and will also be implemented in districts such as Beşiktaş, Fatih, Şişli, Üsküdar, Bakırköy and Beyoğlu where e-scooter travel is most common.

The number of e-scooters and mopeds, which save time in traffic but give pedestrians a hard time when parked recklessly, has increased during the pandemic.

In particular, parents with strollers and citizens with disabilities face great difficulties when walking on the sidewalks.

Car drivers are also uncomfortable with the irregular parking of e-scooters, especially near public transportation areas such as metrobus and metro stops, stating that it can cause accidents.

Mehmet Yılmaz, a citizen complaining about not being able to find an empty sidewalk to walk in the city, said, “The sidewalks are under the occupation of shops, drivers, workplaces and stalls. Someone needs to stop this as everyone uses the sidewalks except pedestrians.”

Saying that the parking of electric scooters on the sidewalks makes it difficult for citizens to walk, Hakan Ocak, another citizen in Beylikdüzü district, called the authorities to find a solution. “We don’t want to see e-scooters tied up to poles in the middle of the sidewalks.”

A regulation on the use of e-scooters, which has prohibited parking in a way that disrupts public order, driving more than two e-scooters side by side in a lane of a road, making reckless movements, having more than one person on the e-scooter at the same time and carrying non-personal items on the vehicle, entered into force on April 14, 2021.

With the increase in e-scooter travel on the streets of metropolitan cities in recent years, a serious increase has been observed in the patients who apply to the emergency services of hospitals due to e-scooter accidents, according to officials.