The city announced Monday it had impounded 38 e-scooters parked on sidewalks and that e-scooter rental companies could be charged a $100 relocation fee plus $200 per day and per scooter for storage. The increased enforcement is leading scooter rental firms to question the city’s timing but reaffirm their commitment to following the rules about where and how long scooters can be parked.
“The honeymoon phase is over,” city Planning Department Director Alan Varela said in a statement. “Our main concerns are everyone’s safety and keeping the right of way clear for pedestrians.”
Rentable e-scooters, used by tourists, students and other residents to navigate city sidewalks, hit Albuquerque in 2019. The City Council relaxed e-scooter rental regulations in 2024, and today there are some 2,000 e-scooters throughout the city with 105 docking stations, according to Varela.
“But as time has gone by,” he said, “we’re noticing that scooters are left blocking sidewalks longer than they should be.”
Varela told the Journal the vendors have generally been very cooperative since the city approved the program.
Spin, Lime and Beam vendors are allowed to operate in Albuquerque. However, some vendors have pushed back, saying the city seized the scooters before the 24-hour grace period in which the ordinance demands the companies retrieve the scooters.
“Beam is committed to responding to city complaints and issues in a timely manner,” David Sedbrook, the company’s vice president of public policy, told the Journal. “However, Beam’s data shows that two of the eight vehicles impounded were taken off the streets less than two minutes after a ride was completed. This rapid impounding does not provide a reasonable time frame for retrieval.”
Spin and Lime officials also told the Journal they're committed to following the city’s rules.
“This was due to an unfortunate miscommunication, which we are looking to rectify,” Karla Owunwanne, senior director of government relations at Lime, told the Journal. “We are currently working with the City to make adjustments to our standard operating procedure to ensure a satisfactory response moving forward.”
Spin’s Senior Partnership Manager Kylee Floodman told the Journal the company did not receive any notification of these vehicles being in violation. All three companies committed to working with the city to ensure their scooters remain on the sidewalks.
In response to the early pickup contentions, the city’s Planning Department spokesperson said the scooters were collected because they were deemed safety hazards or blocking a sidewalk.
“Those two specific terms are being enforced by the City to protect the public by removing safety hazards, maintain ADA access, and incentivize the vendors to diligently prevent improper parking as they promised they would,” Tim Walsh, public information coordinator for the Planning Department, said in a statement.
E-scooters hit American streets in 2017, forcing cities around the U.S. to create new regulations to manage the emerging transportation. Albuquerque’s initial rules were met with criticism. In 2019, Razor and Bird called the city’s rules overly burdensome. They said in a letter to the city that fees and restrictions on usage and parking made it impossible to do business.
Ultimately, Albuquerque’s Planning Department said scooter enforcement is a bump in the road, not an end to the marriage.
“We’re very happy that the scooters are in town. I think that they provide good and inexpensive transportation for people to get to and from work or to run errands and also to have fun,” Varela said. “We really want the scooter companies to be more responsible, like we know that they can be, and make sure that people are properly parking them.”
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