Starting from June 1, three streets in the centre of the Lithuanian capital – Pilies Street, Vilniaus Street, and Savičiaus Street – will be off limits for electric scooters and bicycles.
Signs banning scooters will be installed shortly, the municipality said on Tuesday. The three streets have a high concentration of bars and cafes and are popular with tourists as well as local clubbers.
Moreover, the city is installing special parking spots for electric scooters in central areas of Vilnius, including Naujamiestis and Šnipiškės. Users of scooter sharing platforms will have to leave their rented scooters there.
As of May, there are speed limits for electric scooters: in the Old Town and on bridges, riders must drive at a maximum speed of 12 kilometres per hour.
According to the municipality, by the end of the year, ride-sharing companies will be obliged to mark their electric scooters with identification numbers, so that people can more easily report violations of parking rules, speed limits and other regulations.
Amendments to the Law on Road Safety, discussed by the parliament two weeks ago, propose that electric scooters should only be driven by people over 16 and that they should not be allowed to drive on sidewalks.
Vytautas Grašys, chief of the Lithuanian Traffic Police, has noted that 223 people were injured in accidents involving scooters in 2022. He has also said that some 5,000 cyclists and scooter riders were fined for drink-driving last year.
A survey commissioned by the Lithuanian Traffic Safety Administration in 2021 showed that half of the 507 respondents said they used electric scooters at least once a week, while 17 percent said they were in a potentially dangerous situation very often or often. A quarter of the respondents said they did not see the need to wear a helmet or a vest and a fifth said it was uncomfortable.
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