Deputy Mayor: Regulating e-scooters is not a priority for Tallinn City Council | News

However, Tallinn Vice Mayor Kristjan Järvan (Isamaa) said the city has taken steps to prevent rental scooters from littering city streets when not in use, and to make them safer everywhere.

Järvan is responsible for the transport field within the Tallinn management and gave an interview to ERR that follows.

On Monday you met with Bolt representatives to discuss the company’s activities in Tallinn. What future plans did Bolt’s representatives talk about? What is their vision of how they could operate within the city limits of Tallinn?

They still continue with their main business sectors here, including carpooling, Bolt Drive, scooters and bicycles.

The point of this collaboration is that where previously e-scooters were parked all over the cityscape wherever they were used, we have, in collaboration with the capital’s transport department, designated permanent places in the city center where they can be parked.

This was initially done as a pilot, but has fully justified itself and even Bolt representatives said it really works; it doesn’t make life significantly harder for their customers, yet the cityscape is now significantly better.

As the Transportation Department and e-scooter providers have previously discussed, this project is moving forward. More demarcated places will be added to the city, in different neighborhoods. This is the main article.

The coalition agreement (Reform-SDE-Isamaa-SDE Tallinn) also includes a bicycle sharing project. This is undoubtedly an interesting area, but it was immediately stated that this will not be included in a supplementary budget; we will look into this issue at the next budget, probably next year.

Most likely, in the fall we will start discussing the solutions for creating bike sharing, which may be the best. The question is whether the city will do this itself, or whether it makes sense to collaborate with the private sector.

Access to this service should be equal for all providers, as no one can receive special treatment. If you now park an e-scooter on the sidewalk, 1.5 meters of space must be left for pedestrians. But how is this monitored and by whom?

This was primarily resolved along with those same designated areas in the downtown area. This is an important reason why we are continuing with the project and we are going to demarcate even more places where taking and parking a scooter should take place.

If you ask who is going to check this: this is a traffic management issue. Both the municipal police (Mupo) and the Police and Border Guard Council (PPA) have the option to intervene here.

In your opinion, what are the main issues related to the use of rental e-scooters, and also rental cars, in Tallinn?

I wouldn’t really want to directly regulate the private sector market. Isamaa is certainly right-wing politically. Whether it concerns dealing with rental cars, which many service providers do, or e-scooter rental, which again many companies deal with; there is no significant desire to further regulate these sectors.

Let’s face it: there are considerably more pressing issues within the transport sector, such as modernizing networks, modernizing rolling stock and undoubtedly other changes in traffic management.

Compared to these other priorities, additional regulations for light traffic are not a high priority. Our priority remains public transport and traffic management, in the bigger picture.

At the same time, it has been somewhat unregulated for quite some time. Or has enough been done now to bring some order to the use of electric scooters in Tallinn’s urban space?

If we look at usage, other road users and e-scooter users have become accustomed to a lot.

I think the situation has become considerably more favorable than a few years ago. There is more attention for others. Statistically, the number of accidents has also fallen significantly. PPA initiatives have also created speed limit zones.

It is also in the private sector’s own interest that the image remains favorable for other road users. If that doesn’t happen, the rules will have to intervene, and in fact, creating additional bureaucracy is not in anyone’s interest.

During the recent edition of the Vikerraadio show ‘Reedene intervjuu’, Markus Villig, CEO of Bolt, said that if the corresponding changes are also implemented in the general transport system, the city of Tallinn could accommodate up to 20,000 Bolt rental cars. Currently there are about 1,000 of these on the city streets. What is your comment on this position?

I like that entrepreneurs have ambitious goals. But regarding my vision as deputy mayor, with transport responsibility, I believe that all road users should fit together here and that everyone should be in their place.

If a businessman sees that he can justify his services because people own fewer passenger cars, then that is fair enough, but it must be in line with the free will of those same private individuals.

Starting with coercion, regulation and creating more bureaucracy; that is certainly not my goal.

What public transport changes are planned in Tallinn in the future? Will there be a more extensive review of public transport routes?

Yes there is. I would also like to say that we are renewing a large part of the public transport fleet. We are buying more trams, renewing the entire trolleybus fleet and also buying more buses.

But there are also very important changes to the network in the pipeline. A larger mobility model has been completed by the transport department, allowing us to renew the network for the first time in 30 years.

The first phase took place during the term of the previous city council, when six routes were changed.

A good example of this is route number eight, which was met with much controversy. At first people didn’t like it because any change always brings reactions. But if we look at the data, the use of route number eight has increased by 40 to 50 percent.

At the same time, costs per passenger have fallen by approximately 40 percent. This is a very positive outcome, which proves that the route is changing and that the model underlying these changes is working. For the same money we can provide more and better services. We will continue updating the network step by step.

You have received quite a bit of criticism over the past week over proposals that affect traffic management, in particular your proposal to potentially move pedestrians underground to make the flow of car traffic smoother and more pleasant. What is your response to this criticism? Do you really want to send pedestrians underground?

I think the mayor summed it up well enough when he said that if our goal is safer and smoother mobility, there are two ideological approaches at play. One of these is that we reduce dependence on the car; here there are several options, some are more stick than carrot. The other is that we create multi-level traffic intersections.

Who goes where in terms of levels is not my area of ​​expertise, but to make the current intersections faster and safer, this is feasible at different levels.

These are two different ideological views on how to achieve the same goal. In the longer term, the most sensible combination is both.

Does this mean that cars will also go underground?

Yes. The problem with this is simply that the road cross-section is considerably shorter than the longitudinal cross-section. It is the price issue that comes up here.

—

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Tweet and never miss an update again!