Electric scooters are being introduced to the streets of Montgomery County, Maryland, this weekend.
The county has opened a six-month pilot program in which it will evaluate the use of electric scooters in Gaithersburg, Rockville, Wheaton, Silver Spring and North Bethesda.
Two jurisdictions within the pilot-project area — Garrett Park and Washington Grove — are not allowing the e-scooters.
The county already offers both docked and dockless bikeshares, including electric bicycles, in the same pilot-test area as the e-scooters.
The streets aren’t the only place that e-scooters and e-bikes are rolling this weekend: Montgomery County is opening some of its hiker-biker hard surface trails to electric scooters and electric bikes in another six-month pilot test.
Signs are posted on the trails where the e-bikes and e-scooters are welcome. The trails are Rock Creek Trail, Sligo Creek Trail, Mathew Henson Trail, Long Branch Trail and Northwest Branch Trail.
Class 1 e-bicycles and e-scooters are allowed on the trails. Both devices operate on rechargeable batteries. E-bikes typically have a maximum speed of 20 mph. E-scooters have a maximum speed of 25 mph.
Maps of the Maryland Park trails open to electric scooters starting Saturday are now available online.
The county has also provided a map of the pilot test area for street usage of e-scooters, which is an expanded area for e-bikes which are already being tested in the county.
