The growth of bikeshare and electric scooter companies across D.C. has made getting around without a car so much easier — but it’s also meant finding dockless scooters and bikes strewed across streets and sidewalks.
Now, the District Department of Transportation has hopes your days of tripping over the scooter someone left in the middle of the sidewalk will soon be over.
The city plans to build 100 off-sidewalk corrals for dockless bikes and scooters in all eight pf D.C.’s wards during the coming months.
And since they’re off-sidewalk, that means they’ll be going on the street. But DDOT said that doesn’t mean a reduction of available parking in your neighborhood.
The corrals will be built adjacent to intersections, putting to use the space between the stop sign and where residential parking zones begin — areas you’re not supposed to park your car in anyway. DDOT said the corrals will have the added benefit of preventing illegal parking in that zone, improving visibility at crosswalks and intersections.
Commuters will be allowed to park their personal scooters and bikes in the corrals, as well as picking up and dropping off for-rent, dockless vehicles. The District said these corrals should also serve as natural vehicle deployment points for electric scooter and bikeshare companies.
This is the second phase of DDOT’s off-sidewalk corral installation, which emphasizes residential neighborhoods with narrow sidewalks easily blocked by an improperly parked e-scooter or e-bike.
The corrals were first piloted in business improvement districts and commercial areas where officials anticipated high volumes of dockless vehicle traffic.
