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I’m one of those old fogies you see trying to navigate the sidewalks in downtown Portland. It’s a challenge for me—deaf in one ear, blind in one eye and with balance issues—but with no car, walking is my primary means of transportation. My question concerns all the motorcycles, Segways, e-scooters and e-bikes I see whizzing by me on downtown sidewalks. Are there any limits on these things? —Puzzled in Portland
It’s one of Portland’s charming idiosyncrasies that the same drivers who’ll spend five minutes at an intersection politely insisting that you go first will also gleefully hip-check you into a concrete abutment on the freeway rather than tap their brakes for a quarter-second to let you in. Sounds like pedestrians feel a similar pain.
But fear not, Puzzled: Motorcycles, e-bikes and electric scooters are all 100% prohibited on downtown sidewalks. Violators face a fine of $115—a swift and sure punishment that makes sidewalk trespassers as rare as cars driving without license plates, say, or people walking around with their entire butts hanging out.
Granted, neither of those things is all that rare nowadays. Is this because traffic enforcement still hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels? Or is it just a general breakdown of civility and butt-modesty in our society? Such questions are above my pay grade (given the size of my check, the question “What time is it?” is above my pay grade), but at least I can assure you that those bike and scooter riders are in fact breaking the law, so you can sneer at them with moral clarity.
You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned Segways. That’s because “electric personal assistive mobility devices” (i.e., Segways and their imitators) ARE allowed on Portland’s sidewalks.
Why should Segways be OK while e-scooters aren’t? A scooter’s top speed of 15 mph may be a tad faster than an EPAMD’s 12.5 mph, but surely that difference is outweighed by the fact that both are usually driven by people who are renting them and don’t know what they’re doing.
The real reason is that in 2002 the Segway company hired an army of lobbyists to push legislation favorable to their new invention. Twenty-three state governments, including Oregon’s, had approved the Segway for sidewalk use by the end of that year. Sounds like Uber (owner of Lime scooters) still has a thing or two to learn about legislative tech-bro sleaze.
Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.