The Frankfurt CDU traffic politician Frank Nagel only wants one thing: conditions like in Paris.

There, when the e-scooters are not in use, they are lined up in the prescribed parking spaces.

According to observers, this regulation actually seems to be working.

It's different in Frankfurt: There, e-scooters are standing and lying all over the city center on sidewalks and squares.

They can even be found where parking is prohibited - in parks, playgrounds and bridges.

In return, the parking spaces designated and marked accordingly by the city often remain unused.

Many scooter riders simply park their vehicle where it suits them once they reach their destination.

Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The CDU in Römer no longer wants to stand idly by and watch this situation.

She calls on the mobility department to eliminate the grievances.

Currently, many e-scooters in Frankfurt, of which there were around 18,000 throughout the city until a few weeks ago, are becoming “stumbling blocks” for pedestrians.

In particular, senior citizens and visually impaired people would be endangered in this way, the CDU announced.

Clear guidelines should reduce e-scooter chaos

As a solution, the city councilor Frank Nagel is calling for an invitation to tender for licenses for the rental companies with a qualified selection process.

In this way, the operators could be given clear guidelines.

According to the CDU, this should include deadlines for eliminating grievances, contractual penalties for non-compliance with the requirements, an upper limit for vehicles in the city and the obligation for operators to ensure that the e-scooters are only made available and available in marked areas would.

Nagel is convinced that in this way the number of providers will continue to decrease from the current four.

The transport politician has therefore headed his demand for an invitation to tender: "More order in the city through fewer providers." Paris, but also London and Leipzig have gone the way of an invitation to tender - with obvious success.

In spring 2022, the mobility department led by Green City Councilor Stefan Majer took a different approach in Frankfurt: The scooters should also be parked at least on streets and squares in the extended city center - more precisely: within the avenue ring - in designated parking spaces.

There are also clearly defined prohibited zones for parking vehicles.

However, the city is responsible for overseeing this.

Since last summer, the municipal administration has therefore been testing new software that is intended to show street by street where the scooters are, whether the parking spaces are being used and whether the upper limit of 1000 scooters per provider specified by the city in the extended inner city is being observed.

Tendering of licenses should promise a solution

The basis for the cooperation between the city and the four providers - Bird has now ceased operations in Germany, so that only Tier, Voi, Lime and Bolt are still on the market - is that they apply for a special permit for each e-scooter and 30 euros have to pay per scooter.

With the special use permit, they also undertake to comply with rules such as the use of parking spaces and compliance with the upper limit for vehicles, at least in the city center.

As Nagel criticizes, the misconduct has no consequences.

His conclusion is that neither the conclusion of agreements with the providers nor the identification of parking spaces have set limits to the wild growth.

The traffic department urgently needs to make adjustments.

"We consider the way via the tender to be promising."