Patrick Morgan: Cycling Action Spokesperson on the Government considering moving e-scooters onto bike lanes

A push to get more bike lanes as the Government eyes up moving e-scooters onto them from pathways.

ACC statistics show there were more than 2,100 claims for e-scooter related injuries in the first half of this year. 

Payouts for e-scooter injuries this year are close to surpassing $14 million. 

Cycling Action Spokesperson Patrick Morgan told Ryan Bridge e-scooters are here to stay, so councils need to build more bike lanes to meet demand.

He says we don't need a bike lane on every street, just on main thoroughfares where people want to go.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Government's considering thinking about moving East scooters into cycle lanes
as injury costs go through the roof. Es scooter industries
cost ACC nearly fourteen million alone this year. Patrick Morgan
is Cycle Action spokesperson with me this morning. Good morning, Patrick,
Good morning Ryan. Are you happy to share a lane
with a Lime scooter?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah? This is long overdue. It makes sense for this
to happen. Pedestrians really don't want escooters on the footpath
and off in our streets can be quite hostile for people,
So it makes sense to put es scooters on bike lanes.
But we're going to need a lot more bikeplanes, aren't we.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
You just had to do it, didn't you. You had
to go there, Patrick, how many more bike planes do
we need?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Look, modern cities give people choices about how they get
around with you walk, bike, take the car, the bus, whatever.
East scooters are part of modern cities. They're here to stay,
but they need to be managed properly. That's why it's
good news that the government is at last updating the
law to permit them in bike lanes.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
No, I get that, But how many more bike lanes
do you reckon? We need?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
We don't need a bike plane on every street. No
one's asking for that. What we need is bike plans
on busy streets where people want to go, so to
get people to our schools, workplaces, shops. There's a trend
in modern cities for people to get around by bike
e Bui conscooter. So I think councils and the government

(01:32):
need to restart building bike lanes to meet public demand.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Right And is that demand there? Because last time I
Jin we spent hundreds and millions of dollars probably over
billions now on cycle ways across the country and cycle
networks across the country, and yet there's still only two
percent of us commuting to work on them according to
the census.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, okay, you've got to be aware of that. We
haven't spent nearly that much. Bike plans are the best
bang for bucket transport. You're cheap to do, you can
roll them out quickly. There's huge public demand. We can
see that in Wellington.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Some of them are cost tens and millions of dollars
for a little tiny one.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
It just doesn't add up to the number you said.
What we've got is do you know how much Wellington?
It's well under that, But they are great value for
money because they reduce congestion, they get people where they're going,
and they also give people the choices to get around
the modern city. So, for example, in Wellington we have

(02:36):
added thirty two kilometers of bike lanes in just about
four years. On some of them, the numbers have doubles
in just over a year's time.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
It's what success looks like, doubled from what to what.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think the numbers in Wellington went around four not
around four thousand people get around by bike every single
day in the numbers even higher. It's not meant imagine
all those people.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Of the vices. But do you know because the number
who are commuting to work is an interesting one, isn't it?
And that hasn't changed really in the census the two
most recent A.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
No, that's not true at all. It's been going up
in Wellington for over a decade.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
I'm familiar with.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Also in christ Church people use it.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
But are they that I mean? Are they? It's like
two percent.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
The sensus only measures the journey to work. The trouble
with that is that it doesn't count the journeys that
many people make. For example, people make in their local
communities that children make to school children under fifteen, so
we know that the numbers are much higher than that.
We also know that people deserve to be safe and
by planes keep people safe. How can you put a

(03:50):
price on that?

Speaker 1 (03:52):
All right, Patrick, appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for
being with me, Patrick Morgan's Cycling Action spokesperson.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
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