Margareten blocks rental e-scooters in six areas

Vienna’s Margareten district has banned rental e-scooters from six locations, including several parks, following complaints from residents, ORF reports.

The restrictions are enforced digitally: GPS systems tell rental scooters when they have entered a blocked zone, where they cannot continue. A pavement pictogram in Leopold-Rister-Park also warns riders that scooters are not permitted. The ban covers the park and all paths through the adjacent Theodor-Körner-Hof.

The six locations are Bacherpark, Leopold-Rister-Park, Einsiedlerpark, Bruno-Kreisky-Park, Theodor-Körner-Hof and Eiselsberghof. District officials say the measures are intended to improve safety in green spaces, where pedestrians, children at play and scooters share narrow paths.

“It is simply about safety, for older people and children who run across the park,” district head Michael Luxenberger of the Greens said. He added that scooters travelling faster than 25 kilometres per hour through the parks posed risks. The zones were chosen where the district says dangerous situations have occurred particularly often.

The restrictions apply only to rental scooters. Private scooters are not connected to the operators’ systems and are therefore unaffected. The district plans to install barriers by mid-November to prevent private scooters from passing through the green spaces. Further restrictions may follow, depending on the results.

Vienna already has around 270 slow-speed zones where rental scooters are limited to walking pace, about 20 zones with a 20 km/h limit, and more than 890 zones where riding rental scooters is prohibited.