Salt Lake City considers increasing rider fees for electric scooters

SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake City is looking at increasing rider fees for electric scooters. Officials say they’ll use the money to create more parking spots and better manage their presence in the city.

In the last year, over 800,000 people have ridden the city’s electric scooters close to 1 million miles.

During a city budget presentation meeting last week, Tammy Hunsaker, director of the city’s community and neighborhoods department, asked for rider fees to increase from 10 cents a trip to 20 cents. She also asked for electric scooter providers to be charged $15 instead of $10.

This would bring in enough revenue for the city to hire a part-time employee who can communicate with vendors. There are currently only two vendors in the city, Lime and Spin.

The rest of the income would go towards paying for software and installing electric scooter parking.

When council members asked if it was the city’s responsibility to install parking or the vendors, Transportation Division Director Jon Larsen said the process would be smoother if the city did it. 

“We’d be able to go a lot faster if the city was the one that put them in. And then it also takes care of the issue of making sure that the parking is vendor-neutral,” Larsen said.

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