By Morgan Montalvo
WOAI News
As the number of so-called dockless vehicles - colloquially known as "scooters" - grows in and around downtown San Antonio, City Council is eager to adopt a policy governing use of the popular two-wheeled personal transports, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Council members today receive an update from the Center City Development Department, which Dist. 1 Councilman Roberto Trevino expects will lead to a discussion about what San Antonio is doing to preserve existing "multi-modal" conveyance while also embracing new forms of personal transport.
"These scooters have presented what I think is a gap, kind of an exposure, of how we have a lack of bicycle lanes," Trevino says. "Our infrastructure needs to be master-planned in a way that we're considering all of these great, new, innovative technologies that are coming in, allowing people to move about safely, move about our city, in dedicated lanes and safe areas."
Central to that concept, Trevino says, is safe travel.
"We want to make sure we address some public safety concerns - accessibility issues and right-of-way issues as well," says Trevino, who represents the downtown area.
Working with other cities that have experienced a surge in scooter numbers and successfully negotiated the accompanying challenges, Trevino says, could help San Antonio cut down on time needed to develop a scooter strategy.
"I think it's always smart to look at what other cities are doing and seeing how we can incorporate some of the lessons already learned. This isn't an issue that San Antonio is isolated dealing with; it's something that's happening all over the country and we can learn together by partnering with other cities and finding solutions that can work here," says Trevino, who add that one of those solutions should be enacting an evolving policy to govern scooter use.
"My hope is that we can implement something quickly and just be willing to adjust if we have to. Rather than try to wait for a perfect policy, a perfect solution, we should go with what we know needs to happen right away, and then build on that," he says.