Scooters to stay in Nashville; They brought in $145,000 to city's general fund last year

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — After a year of controversial back-and-forth, it’s official: electric scooters aren’t leaving Music City anytime soon. This news comes after Metro Council voted against a total ban Tuesday night: 24 to seven.

Ryan Barry has lived in East Nashville since 2012. He says he uses scooters to get around at least three or four times a week.

“It’s just nice not to drive,” Barry said. “It’s easy to park this, you don’t have to pay for parking.”

He and a group of his friends use scooters to get to each other’s houses, to run errands, and even to cross the river to get downtown.

“Scooters are a last-mile solution, but anything’s better than nothing,” Barry said.

That’s why he’s happy to hear Metro Council voted against a total ban last night.

“It kind of was a bummer when the mayor tried to say he was going to outright ban them, I just didn’t like that idea, so I’m glad, this is a good compromise of less scooters, it’s gotten better on the sidewalks so it’s kind of appeasing both crowds,” Barry said.

He said more still needs to be done to raise awareness of scooter drivers riding on the streets (which is in compliance with official scooter rules. He said scooter-specific signs near bike paths and other areas could help keep drivers aware of the transportation devices.

“I think that they’re still new, so people still misuse things that are new and they just don’t know how to behave, because there’s no set behavior yet so with signage saying share the road, people will change their behavior,” Barry said.

Not everyone agrees with Barry’s positive view of scooters.

Criticism of the devices intensified after 26-year-old Brady Gaulke died in a scooter crash in Nashville in May.

Designated scooter parking areas were installed in June, and new restrictions went into effect in July, which include prohibiting scooter use past 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends.

FOX 17 News dug deeper into the numbers by talking with Transportation Licensing Commission Director Billy Fields.

With a $500 application fee for each scooter company, and a $35 fee per scooter, Fields said the city made $145,000 off of the devices in 2018.

He said that money doesn’t go to public works or the transportation licensing commission. Instead, he said it goes directly to the city’s general fund.

While we don’t know how much money the scooters have brought into Music City this year yet, Fields said a fee increase for the scooter companies is likely.

The number of scooters on Nashville streets has decreased drastically in recent months. In May, there were more than 4,000 throughout the city. Now, Fields said there are closer to 2,000.

He said the next step is narrowing the total number of operating scooter companies from six to three.