The National Park Service is trying something new: it has created 25 designated areas around the National Mall to park your rented e-scooter or bike.

NPS announced the micro-mobility parking pilot program on Monday.

The new parking areas are spread out on the Mall, Tidal Basin and East Potomac Park, as well as among the Washington, Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson memorials. You can see the full map here; you’ll need to zoom in pretty close to see the green parking zones.

“New Dockless Parking areas have been established to aid visitors in visiting our various sites and provide approved areas to park them,” NPS said in a release.

Previously, the 300-plus acre area was a massive no-parking zone. That meant while scooters and bikes were useful downtown, the Mall was a strict cut-off to where you could end your trip. Riders could technically end their rides there, but risked a fine.

Riding scooters, bikes, roller skates, and skateboards is still prohibited near memorials, but they can be ridden on sidewalks and roads around the memorials. 

“Please show your fellow visitors and the people honored by the memorials the proper respect and walk your bicycles and scooters through the World War II and Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorials or lock them up in an appropriate place before entering,” NPS says on its website.

It’s unclear what prompted the change on allowing scooters to end a trip on the Mall. NPS staff were unavailable for an interview on Monday. Regardless, former Greater Greater Washington director David Alpert said on Twitter he was glad to see the change.

“I was once told by someone at NPS that it operates on the time scale of decades. So while it’s not speedy — it’s still a pretty slow-moving agency — it accommodated bikeshare and now dockless on a time scale of a couple of years, which is like cheetah fast,” he wrote.

Robert Gardner, who does government relations for Lime, says the project has been in the work for about two years. He welcomed the new development since the area is often a high-demand spot for scooter riders.

“We’re thrilled and grateful to the National Mall for this excellent example of collaboration between the Federal and City governments and the micro-mobility industry,” he said in a statement. “Working together, we’ve been able to create an improved way for riders and non-riders to enjoy an area of the City with some of the highest demand we see.

“We will keep working hard to make sure that this pilot works and look forward to other opportunities to collaborate with the City and NPS.”

Poor scooter parking — think in the middle of a sidewalk — was a major safety and inconvenience concern when scooters were introduced in D.C. in 2017. Local governments have since tried to designate parking areas to reduce that practice, but it’s had mixed success.

Dan Winston of Spin said the micro-mobility company will incentivize riders to use parking areas by giving a 50 cent discount for trips ending these areas.

“The perimeter surrounding the Mall is one of our busiest areas, with thousands of people riding every day,” Winston said. “Additional parking areas are a great way to ensure that scooters fit seamlessly into the transportation network.

“We look forward to working with the NPS and DDOT on this pilot, and other programs in the future.”

D.C. has authorized six companies to provide up to 10,680 scooters and 3,970 e-bikes in the city, though not that many are on the street at one given time.