Dockless scooter devotees may be delighted to see more vehicles zooming around the District next year, but with less variety if the city adopts new draft proposed rules from the District Department of Transportation.

Under the rules, which are currently up for public comment, up to 10,000 dockless scooters would be allowed to roam D.C. streets in 2020, a 60 percent increase from today’s 6,210 permitted limit, Greater Greater Washington first reported. Dockless bikes won’t be left out of the fun either; up to 10,000 of them would also be permitted, making for a potential 20,000 dockless vehicles on the road.

But not every company currently in the D.C. market would get to participate. The permit would cut the number of current scooter operators in half, allowing just four companies to deploy between 500 to 2,500 vehicles throughout the day, with no more than 1,000 vehicles allowed in the Central Business District at any point.

There are currently eight dockless scooter companies in the District: Bird, Bolt, Jump (which also operates dockless bikes), Lime, Lyft, Razor, Skip, and Spin. Two other dockless vehicle sharing operators, Hopr and Ridecell, could also enter the ring, both of which operate bicycles and electric scooters.

It isn’t clear how DDOT would decide which companies get to stay and which ones have to go. DCist has reached out to DDOT for comment.

The new regulations would also require companies to deploy 20 vehicles in each ward by 6 a.m. each morning (current rules only require them to deploy six vehicles). In addition, each operator must also deploy at least 400 vehicles in “Equity Emphasis Areas” within a two-hour time period each morning, in an attempt to make the dockless scooters more accessible. These areas are parts of the District that have significant concentrations of low-income and/or minority population groups, as determined by the National Capital Region Planning Board (TPB) in 2017.

Dockless vehicles have been operating in the city since DDOT began a pilot program in 2017, and while at first bicycles were the main attraction in town, scooters took over the scene last year. The city extended its pilot program several times, and released its first permit requirements for the dockless vehicle program late last year. The new rules are proposed to govern dockless companies in operation in the city next year.

Public comments on the new proposal are open until Oct. 7.

Previously:
A Skip Scooter Exploded In Someone’s Backyard Last Year
New D.C. Council Bill Would Ban Riding Scooters At Night
Lyft Just Raised Scooter Prices. How Much Do All The Scooters Cost, Anyway?
Just How Environmentally Friendly Are All Those Scooters?
Now That Scooters Are Part Of The Local Streetscape, Local Governments Are Trying To Figure Out How To Regulate Them
New Dockless Rules Will Allow More Scooters In D.C., But They’ll Go Slower

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